Catching up with us

Now that we have had some sleep and gotten settled in, I will catch you up on the life of Jenkins in china. We had a great time in Hong Kong, and took the train to Guangzhou on Sunday. We did try a little McDonald's at the train station before we got on. Chris found out that the shogun burgers would not be one that he would lobby to have added to the U.S. menu. It was a "pork" patty with teriyaki and fried egg. The seaweed seasoning you could add to the fries was pretty yummy though.

Waiting for the train

When we got to Guangzhou we checked into the Garden Hotel. Our room here is pretty a,axing, bigger than our apartments in college, it has an office with an exercise bike, a half bath, a doorbell, and the boys favorite part- a heated toilet seat and bidet.

 

The breakfast is a lot of fun for Liam, he has had soba noodles, teriyaki beef and steamed pork buns that he loved so far. He was not a fan of the taro cake though. On our first night we went and ate at Tekila, pretty good Mexican food for China.

Yesterday we were all a bundle of nerves waiting to go to the civil affairs office to meet Lexi. We passed the time yesterday with a visit to trust mart, which is Walmart in China. The prices were amazingly cheap, we bought drinks, cookies, socks, candy, crackers, and Legos- all for less than $20.

I thought this underwear would make Zane laugh

The Walmart warning sign

We had lunch at subway and found out Chinese portions are a little different than the US, Jarrod could drop some serious weight here! My "Italian red meat" flavored chips were pretty good though, and we have found that the juice here is like in Kazakhstan , so much better than the weak sugar water juice drinks you get at home. We did have a meeting to go over paperwork before we went to get the kids, and we were informed that Lexi is friendly and happy, but she likes to take toys from others and make them cry. Uh oh!

 

After lunch we hung out in our room as long as we could stand it, then waited down stairs to go to the civil affairs office. The ride there was surreal, there are three families in our translator's group and we were all so nervous! On the way upstairs, one family actually ended up riding up in the elevator with their daughter and the worker that had brought her over from the orphanage. We had only been there about three minutes when the translator came and old us that Song Ke was there, we were the first family to be given our daughter. When they brought her out, the first thing we saw was that she has some trouble walking, she has one foot that stays pointed down, so we will have some ortho visits when we get home. The next thing we saw was that she was scared, poor thing. Even as scared as she was, she immediately snuggled up against me and held on tight. After just a few minutes we began to see her beautiful smile around the corner of her sippy cup. The girl loves a sippy! She began laughing and playing and has really been happy ever since.

 

 

 

Last night we went to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, where we quickly figured out that the just like kids born in America, the only thing she knows how to do with chopsticks is bang them loudly on the table. By the time we got back to the hotel it was time for bed, we were all sooooo tired. Even though she was exhausted, we were impressed with Lexi's crib escape ninja moves. The second we put her in she flipped herself right out. I ended up rocking her to sleep in our bed and she was fine.

Today we went back to civil affairs for more paperwork. It was super hot and sticky in the office, but Lexi was a champ and stayed happy the whole time, even when she peed in my lap. These Chinese pull ups are just not working out! We are going back to the store today to try something else. We had a great Thai lunch at the banana leaf, all 14 of us in our group ate for under $100. Kind of funny that we were eating in the Guangzhou World Trade center on 9/11. Right now the little princess is sleeping with Daddy for her afternoon nap, and all is right with the world.

Tomorrow our only official appointment is to go to the police station to get her picture made, other than that we will be searching for something to pass the time. Lexi was not a happy camper about having a bath this morning, so I don't know that the hotel pool will be a big hit, but we may give it a try.

 

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