Tuesday in Nanchang

Today has been a more relaxed day! Our agency had a pediatrician visit the hotel to check all the babies. Just about all of them have colds and one little one has pneumonia, so they got her medicine right away. Mia does have a cold but is doing really well considering we are so strange to her. Our guide taught us all some "basic talk-to-baby Mandarin" to help out.. She is not exactly sure what to make of us speaking the language sometimes but it helps to calm her down when she gets upset :)

 

China is amazing, we will have so many stories, pictures and videos!!! There are just SO many people! Nanchang is very "Authentic China", as our rep keeps reminding us. The apartment buildings are overwhelming, the average family lives in 500-600 sq ft. All the laundry is hung out the windows. Everything is pretty dingy :( Most people have never seen a foreigner in person, so we are quite the spectacle!!! They are very inquisitive and many come up and read the tags we wear around  our necks explaining we are here to adopt the baby. We get a lot of smiles and thumbs ups :) They love to squeeze Mia's cheeks or legs :) The language barrier is pretty tough, even in the hotel. Last night at dinner we played a very respectful game of charades to get some chili sauce, LOL.

 

Mia really likes to be outside so we did some exploring outside the hotel today. She babbles a bunch when she is out :) It made me nervous to venture too far! Crossing the street is quite an event, a really pretty scary, seriously!!! A is much more adventurous than me. Our rep prepared a group dinner for us at the restaurant next door. The food was really good and they had a huge cake to celebrate the the birth of the babies' new lives :) Mia ate a ton of noodles and liked the cake too! Hope you enjoy the pictures- M 

and More Pictures!!!

More Pictures.....

Pictures!!!

I just foud out the pictures didn't get posted.  Due to the anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, which started in the city we are in (Nanchang), all social websites are blocked.  I'll try and add one or two at a time now.

It's Official!

Sunday was a wirlwind day.  After arriving in Nanchang we had an hour to get settled in our rooms and then off to a meeting regarding our itenerary for the next 6 days.  The entire meeting was informative but everyone was so eager for the babies to arrive.  A few babies from a different orphanage arrived about 4:15 and the tears started.  Our orphanage arrived at 5:00PM and we recieved our Mia about 5:10.  She was a little in shock and didn't cry.  She was very verbal and kept saying Ma Ma Ma Ma.  We had a very good night and she only fussed a little around 3:00AM.  Today we visited the Office of Civil Affairs and officially became the parents of Mia Mei Zotti.  All of our "official" work is done in Nanchang and now we just wait for her passport and notarized documents to come in.  We will probably walk around and do a little shopping here but are going to save most of our shopping for the great deals in Guangzhou.  Here are a few pictures from our day today. ~A

We made it to Nanchang!!!

Last night we did not sleep very much and early this morning we left the airport in Hong Kong for Nanchang  in Jiangxi Province. We landed just before 1pm, made it through immigration and customs, then it was a 40 minute bus ride to the hotel.

 

Now, we are HERE...in our room freshening up before we meet as a group at 3pm. The babies are to be here at 5pm but we have been told to bring our cameras down with us in case they arrive early :)

 

Ready...Set...GO!!!!!!

 

Will blog more when we have pictures!!!!

 

 

Hong Kong!!!

We arrived in Hong Kong only 40 minutes later than originally scheduled and we made it to the hotel just after midnight. We both slept fairly well and were up by 6am, that's not a typo either... I was up without coercion by 6am LOL!

Our hotel is on Kowloon peninsula, so our tour today was of Hong Kong Island. We went way, way up to the peak of the mountain in a bus on a very narrow road. When another bus or concrete truck passed both drivers slowed down a BIT and we passed with INCHES to spare. We visited a jewelry factory, a mall and a street market. To finish the tour, our guide took us all to lunch.
Here is a photo from the peak looking down onto Hong Kong.