This morning we took of to the zoo!  We went on a wheeled Safari ride and then walked through the zoo.  It really was an amazing zoo, maybe one of the best I have ever been to.  The folage was very lush and tropical, the grounds were beautiful, and they had a ton of animals … more of certain species (like Tigers and Giraffee’s) than I had seen at any other zoo.  And we tend to go to a lot of zoos!

First, a couple of shots from last night.  How could I have forgotten to post this shot????

And, in the name of brevity, we have seen a million shopping pictures so just one:

In one of the shops that we bought a fair amount of stuff, the shop keeper would write out the adopted kids names in Chinese along with their meaning.  Here he is doing one of Caleb’s name:

One of the interesting things about this city is that EVERYONE hangs their laundry outside their apartments to airdry.  You could have a very nice, fancy apartment building, and then outside a window would be a rod and their clothing hanging out there.  I keep wondering what happens when a sudden wind comes a long and it all gets taken away?  Clayton, the father of the other family we are with, said that he heard that happens and that the parents send the kids down to the street to pick up the clothing.  Nice …

I just had to take a picture of this guy.  Nice sleeves, bud.  They sell men’s clothing where you bought that?

I guess you could say that public transportation is well utilized here?

OK, so I am sorry to everyone who I told I was going to post the zoo pictures yet today, but I have been fighting with Xanga now for 20 minutes just trying to get this far and everyone else is in bed!  I can not get the photo manager to work with me here, so I guess I will have to post the pictures after I get up in the morning.  Sorry!

First thing tomorrow, at 8:15 AM (8:15PM Monday – Eastern Time) we have to have Caleb’s TB test read.  It looked pretty good today, but this is the ONE thing that can kind of hang things up, especially since we are running short on time with the Labor Day holiday this weekend.  Pray that it does get read “negative.”  Things will go much smoother if that is the case!

Cameron

This morning we had to take the kids over to the medical clinic to have their medical examination and vaccinations needed before they can enter the US.  In addition, they have to have a TB test that must be read by early Tuesday morning before we go to our meeting with the US Consulate that same day in order to get a VISA. 

Now, I am not going to say that our guide, Connie, is pushy.  BUT, I can say that it is nice to have a guide that basically walks you to the front of the line everywhere at the clinic!  It was VERY busy there as all the families that are here this weekend were trying to get the same stuff done that we were.  I would say that we were NOT the first ones there, but we were pretty close to the first ones out!  Connie took our paperwork and ran us through every station quickly.  I feel that we may well have been put ahead of other people, but with whirling dervish Caleb in tow, we were not about to argue with her!  She did make us stand in line a few times … very few!

I mentioned the other day about the construction.  They were paving the street in front of our hotel until about 10:30 last night.  That is nothing compared to the construction noise we had to deal with in Hanoi with Mia.  They worked until 12:00 or 1:00AM there. 

So much of the work here is done by hand.  They have very few power tools.  It is amazing to watch people working away with a hammer or an axe to break up concrete when a jackhammer could do it in about 1/100th of the time!

That last picture almost cost me the family.  I loved the character of this building so I let the group get ahead of me while I tried to find the best angle for this picture.  Of coarse, when I was done they had slipped into a side door somewhere and I couldn’t find them!  If Clayton, the father from the other family, had not seen me walking by I would probably still be wondering the island!

I can tell you that this medical clinic was SOOO much nicer than the one we visited in Vietnam.  If you go to Mia’s blog (www.xanga.com/journeytomia) you can see that it was kind of a pit!  This place was nice and clean and everyone (except maybe the Malaysian doctor that takes you money) was very nice!

Caleb was told what was in store for him and Brittany had to do a little comforting.  Thank goodness she is here!

Connie working out our quick tour through the medical center!

The entire reason why we are here ….

The meeting of the Nintendo Anonymous members – China Branch.

Kelly had to hand over Caleb’s immunization records.

Then, Caleb had to have his temperature read and his height measured.

Then it was off to get his shots.  It looks like a scene from the Green Mile!

Then, we took Caleb over to get his medical exam.

After that, the ENT exam…

… and finally the visual exam.

We went back to the hotel and Kelly worked with Connie on all the paperwork needed for the Consulate.  Brittany went and played with her new friends and Taylor and I took Caleb back to the room to get him feed.  Now, I guess it is off to more shopping????

Two big credits to Taylor today.  First, she showed me the joy of peanut butter on Oreo’s.  That is some good stuff.  If you have tried it, you should.

Second, she rigged up a clothes dryer in our bathroom.  She took two hair dryers and set them on each side of the bathroom, aimed to shoot a hot cross breeze through the wet clothes we had hand washed in the sink.  She was trying to figure out a way to get a third hair dryer in the mix, but I was amazed that the electrical circuit could handle the two!  I think a third would have shut the entire room down!  Nice job, Tay!

Tomorrow we go on a safari!  Yay!

Cameron

Today was S-S-S day … Shopping-Swimming-Shoping!  We started out today heading down the hall for breakfast and running into the other Madison family who arrived late last night.  It was nice to have another family around to share your experiences with!  They are a wonderful Christian family who is adopting a 9 year old little girl who has had a couple of heart surgeries, but the last one was when she was 3 and she seems like a completely healthy little girl now!

We started by heading down to the play area for a few minutes to wear the kids down before the heavy shopping began.  You fool them a little into thinking you really are NOT going shopping, and then when they are all sweaty and tired, you lure them into the shops.  It doesn’t always work, but it did today.

Brittany and her new playmate played on the teeter-totter while an elderly gentleman stared on.  In the US this would seem rather creepy, but here it is perfectly normal.

With the blond haired girls added to our processional, the frequency of picture requests has risen dramatically.  I guess we just weren’t different enough for people to get over their inhibitions, but add a couple of Swedes to the mix and now everyone becomes brave!

Yes, Caleb slid down this pole today.  Well, it was more of a controlled fall, but he is ALL boy!

Imagine … he also likes to climb!

 It was fun to watch this group of older ladies kicking a ball around for exercise.

Now that the kids were tired out, it was off to the shopping part of the day!

Here is the little girl with the heart surgeries.  Sorry, I can’t pronounce her name, let alone say it.  Maybe here parents will comment with the correct spelling!

I HAD to take the picture of the statue taking the picture!

Once again, the weddings were out in force today.  I had to take these shots because the brides were wearing traditional dresses.  They were quit beautiful.  I would love to shoot a wedding here!

I thought this was funny because it wasn’t the only time we saw it today!  A bride-to-be running around the construction area desperately trying to keep her beautiful white dress clean!  I also liked the little pink sandals! 

With the morning shopping period finished (and a little Subway under our belts … mmmmm) …

…we headed to the pool for a little swimming.  Yes, the pool water was really this green and, yes, we still went swimming.  We are heading for the medical exam tomorrow morning so we figured we can fix anything that goes wrong there!!this was Caleb’s first time in the pool and he did OK.  Not REAL sure about the water, but OK.

Taylor was SO happy.  Shopping and now laying in the sun.  What more could a girl want??

Brittany enjoyed a little sun herself!

Caleb started getting brave, lower himself all the way into the water and then pulling himself up.  Can I tell you how STRONG that kids right arm is!

Then, without warning, he turned into Aquaman!

If you should happen to come by and see us in the hotel this is the view you will most likely see:

Caleb is basically in charge of all button pushing on all elevators, regardless of us being by ourselves or with other families.  That is the way it is.  It is Caleb rule.

On our way to dinner, it was obviously a good time for some more shopping!

This guy below actually puts a paint brush into bottles and vases and paints the pictures on the INSIDE!  Very cool.

Cool enough that we ended buying a bunch of stuff from him.

Caleb truly was a bull in a china shop here, so I ended up taking him outside the shop.  You can see how very happy and excited he was with me concerning this decision.

He perked up a little bit later.  He usually doesn’t stay mad too long!

That night we went to a Thai restaurant and we had a very nice time just sitting and talking.

Caleb does enjoy his noodles!

Tomorrow we head out to the medical office to get an exam and any immunizations that he needs.  Now, it is time to go to bed!

Cameron

Taylor just came out of the bathroom to inform us that FINALLY her hair straighener is working!!  We have waited anxiously all week for this day, one that rivales that of actually getting Caleb.  It has been a long time coming, but the pictures of tomorrow’s “free” day should be spectacular!

Cameron

 We arrived this afternoon at Guangzhou after an uneventful plane ride.  Caleb did PRETTY well on a three hour flight, but I’m still not sure how well he will handle going trans-Pacific/Aortic!  I felt like I spent half of my time keeping him from kicking the seat in front of his, lowering the tray, raising the tray, lowering the tray …  And, it isn’t easy doing all those things when you can’t speak Chinese and explain to him WHY he shouldn’t be doing those things. 

I forgot to post this picture from last night of Caleb and Kelly watching a movie together.  He is starting to really warm up to her.

At the airport, we were blessed to have a kids play area.  Caleb (and Brittany) were able to burn off a little energy before the flight.  I hate to be partial, but Caleb WAS by far the cutest kid in there (excluding Brittany of course).

Then, Caleb boarded his first plane ride.  The kid is a rock.  Nothing scares him.  Everything is a new adventure.  Our guide asked him this morning on the drive to the airport if he liked America.  He said no, but then said he has never been there, but is going to go there and will probably like it.  Funny kid.

We landed in Guangzhou around 3 o’clock.  This is a city of about 9 million people and they are preparing to host the 2010 Asian Games in November.  This is a pretty big deal for this city so EVERYTHING is under construction.  Our new guide, Connie (not Kendel) told us that the government has said that all construction must be done by September, so everywhere you look buildings are being remodeled.  It was interesting in that in all the other cities we have been in, there has been a ton of new construction.  But, on our drive in today, it appeared that here all the buildings are getting new facade’s and I saw very little new construction.

Connie informed us that because it is Labor Day this weekend, everyone is on a three day vacation.  We were supposed to go tomorrow morning and get Caleb’s physical and immunizations.  But, the clinic will be closed.  They have agreed to open on Sunday so that the TB test can be done on Tuesday morning.  So, that puts us a day behind, which is a little concerning.  Connie told us that she already talked to the US Consulate and they understood the situation and that the day delay would not delay us over all.  Let’s all be praying that is the case!

We are staying on an island in the middle of the city.  If anyone is familiar with Govenors Island in New York, it is kind of like that, although there is car access.  The island is very “resortish” and, combined with the tropical environment of Guangzhou, it will probably be a very beautiful place.  I say that because, as with everything else, the entire island is under construction.  The streets are all torn up and it is very congested and there are workers everywhere!

There are basically two places on the island that people adopting children stay.  And, because so many people who are adopting children stay here, there are more people who speak English and there are several places to eat.  That is good, but the prices are more expensive, so you have to take the good with the bad.  This area is basically on the same Latitude as Puerto Rico, so it is a very warm, humid environment.

I mentioned there are two places people usually stay.  One is The White Swan and the other is The Victory.  The White Swan is extremely well known and has a tradition of having adoptive children sit on a white couch and get their picture taken with a special Barbie doll that is provided.  Well, Caleb would probably rip the dolls head off anyway, so we are not staying there.  We are staying at the Victory, which we are told has bigger rooms, and we were not disappointed.

Through that opening in the wall is our sitting room.

It is a very large and comfortable room.  And it has a pool that does not require goggles or a swimming cap!

The view from The Victory roof isn’t too bad either, even though it looks down on some of the more unfinished areas of the island.

After we checked in we went for a little walk around the island, heading to a restaurant called “Lucy’s.”  Our guide, Connie, told us it was a place where many American families liked to eat.  You can see a lot of what reminded me of the French Quarter in New Orleans here.

And, in the middle of all these nice buildings, more construction.

We arrived at Lucy’s and ordered.  The food was OK.  We are so ready to have a REAL meal, but this wasn’t it.  Between that and Taylor and I not being able to figure out that “Linguini” is not the same thing as “Alfredo,” we were underwhelmed with Lucy’s.  But, it was still decent food and Caleb seemed to enjoy it!

Brittany was able to enjoy some chicken wings!  It wasn’t BW-3, but I think it was still pretty good!

Caleb tends to put his mouth down by his plate and “scoop” all the food in.  We are working with him on this, but sometimes you just can’t get it in fast enough without the “scoop!”

I think Kelly finally gave up!

After dinner we just walked around the island a little and looked at the sights.

You like how I got that trash can in the last picture?  Not every photographer could set up the scene quite as nicely and include such an ugly item.  I am talented.

Below is what we have been told is a very nice Italian restaurant.  We will see ..

There is a park right in the middle of the island that has places for kids to play and places for adults to work out.  It is a little worn, but still a nice diversion!  And, it is right up the street from our hotel!

See that bar above Caleb’s head on the shot above?  He walked right into it TWICE and would have hit it a THIRD time is Kelly wouldn’t have stopped him!  I thought he was pretty smart, but maybe not …

Tomorrow is a “free” day for us.  I have NO idea what we are going to do with a free day.  I will let you know.

Cameron

Before I blog about this afternoon, a few thoughts.  First, on the lighter note:

• I realized that China had a one-child policy before I left, but I had NO clue they had a one-roll of toilet paper rule.  And, to make matters worse, it is rarely a full roll!  It’s like there is some guy in the basement taking two-ply, splitting it into one-ply and rolling it back on a roll (and don’t act like your parents at some point in your life didn’t do that!).
• Banana peels CAN go down the toilet.  Caleb has proven this.  I’m assuming he never had a “typical” toilet before because he is fascinated by it and what goes down it.  I have a feeling that the banana incident was somehow secretly sent to him by Mia through Skype as part of their coordinated effort against us.  We will see what else transpires.
• “Bin Qua” is ice.  Remember that.  We spent much time last night trying to draw pictures and use hand gestures just to get a little bucket of gross tasting ice.  They don’t use it here in their drinks and they think us quite strange to ask for it.
• There is a period where, I am assuming, an adoptive child’s body has to adjust to eating more “American” food.  This period of time can be, well … somewhat smelly if I have to be frank.  Caleb was passing some of the worst gas yesterday and he did it ALL day long.  At one point when he was watching a movie, I thought Taylor and I were going to pass out!  I mentioned to the girls that I had smelled his gas SO MUCH yesterday that I was starting to think that that was the natural smell of the city we were in.  Either he did better today, or the smell sensors in our noses were so badly damaged yesterday that we just were unable to smell it anymore.  That is, unfortunately, completely feasible.

On a more serious note, I have been so impressed with how Caleb has progressed in that last couple of days.  On Monday he was an crazy kid with about no self control.  I wasn’t sure if we were EVERY going to get him to sit still and control himself.  But, by today, he was doing so much better.  He held my hand through most of the part and rarely tried to run off.  The couple of times he did, he stopped when we called him.  He now sits in the restaurants, rather than yelling and standing on his chair.  And, he has learned to whisper in the elevator rather than talk at the top of his lungs.  It was so cute tonight when he pulled Brittany over and was whispering in her ear as we went up to our room.  She has no clue what he said, but at least it was in a civilized voice.  I am truly amazed at how far he has come in just a few short. days.

This afternoon Caleb and Brittany were playing and he fell and hit his head on the table.  Kelly was able to give him some of the motherly comfort that she is so good at giving.

That said, we went to a four-story mall tonight.  He LOVES escalators and he was dragging me around from one escalator to the next!  I felt that I was taking Hershey, our month’s old dog, for a walk!  It was exhausting…  As we left the Mall, here was the view of all the bikes and scooters that greeted us:

As I told you yesterday, we have been looking for a park and, in the end, there was one a block away from our hotel, jut in a direction that we had not been going!  It is called the “People’s Park” and it was quite nice!

The park is surrounding a large lake with paddle boats.

There are walkways and bridges all through the park that are very ornate and beautiful.

As is typical, people gather at these parks to play games,

practice their drumming,

and exercise.

They also play this game (? I guess?) where they have a large top and they hit it with a type of whip that keeps the top spinning.

I have no idea what it was called, but there were a TON of people doing it!

In addition, I guess this was the park to have your wedding pictures taken, because that was a pretty common occurrence while we were there!

OK, quick note on the way the Chinese people dress their babies.  First, it was almost 70 degrees out today and they still had their kids dressed up in snow suites.  However, these suits have an interesting feature.  There is a slit cut in the back.  This allows the little kids to go to the bathroom without taking everything off!  Unfortunately that means that they don’t wear any underwear, so their bare bottoms are hanging out.  Taylor says that is OK because everyone’s bottom looks the same anyway.  I think she may need some counseling when she gets home.

The park had many interesting items like sculptures and buildings that all surrounded the lake.

However, what interested Caleb the MOST was the paddle boats.  He was bound and determined that he was riding one of those boats.  So, we gave in!  A very, very nice lady at the boat talk kind of took us by the hand and showed us what we needed to do to rent them.  We thought $100 (about $15 US) was kind of a lot for these people to pay!  It wasn’t until we came back to the dock and she walked us through the process that we realized that the $100 was just a DEPOSIT and we got $75 of that back.  So, $2.50US for a boat ride was very, very reasonable!

We all piled into our “duck” boat with Taylor and myself providing the power! 

It didn’t take long before Caleb wanted to “drive” …

… and then wanted to peddle.  He ended up peddling by himself for much of the ride.

Brittany ended up doing much of the navigating, including taking us through this treacherous area twice!

Kelly and Taylor excelled at looking pretty!

Unlike this guy, whose picture I took earlier in the afternoon.  However, I just LOVE the faces of these people.  I wish I had an afternoon just to go out and take face shots.  But, I’m not here for the photography!

After we got off the boat, we went looking for where they were flying kites and ended up in another park that was next door to the “People’s Park”.

A lot of people where masks here.  I’m not sure if it is because of the pollution, concern about avaiary flu (sp?), or the pollen from the poplar trees.  Maybe it is a combination of both.

Brittany and Caleb had a good time.

The park was preparing for a big festival this weekend.

In this park, we found an older gentleman who was selling the tops and sticks that we had seen previously.  He LOVED Brittany and spent a bunch of time with both her and Caleb showing them how to do it.

Do you think there may be a little hockey in Caleb’s future?

In the end, I paid the guy $1.50US for a stick and a top … and a little plastic toy that Caleb liked.  But, he was a nice guy and I didn’t mind!

That about raps it up for today.  Tomorrow we head to Guangzhou, the last trip on our journey!

Cameron

I am going to break today’s blog into two parts because it was a pretty busy day with a ton of pictures and I don’t want this blog to get too long!

As promised, Brittany tried her fish heads this morning, after having a couple of helpings of Duck Neck.  OK, not fish heads, but complete fish with heads still attached. 

She was NOT real sure about eating this thing, though.

But, in the end, she said it actually taste pretty good.  I noticed she didn’t go back for a second helping.

Tay tried her hand at chop sticks.  It was kind of sad ….

We left the hotel this morning and traveled to a Buddhist Temple which was about 40 minutes away.  On the drive, Caleb kept our guide and driver in stitches as he talked a blue streak.  It is nice to have someone who understands WHAT the little guy is talking about all the time!  Do you have ANY idea how embarrassing it is to be in a crowded elevator with Caleb rattling off a mile a minutes and everyone knowing that THEY know what he is saying but YOU have no clue?

Anyway, as soon as we got into the van, Caleb told the driver, “You are a good driver.  I fell asleep in your van yesterday.”  Then, later, he regaled everyone with a story about tiger’s and lion’s which he personally experienced but then later admitted it was only when he went to the zoo.  He has quite an imagination and I am sure that Mia and he will be able to think up many exciting adventures for Kelly and I to unwillingly participate in!

When we got to the temple, they were having some sort of authentic dance presentation, complete with a fake emperor and emperess.  The costumes were pretty cool and we stayed out front and watched the entire procession before we went in. 

Here are the girls in there pretty skirts.  However, it was later in the day that I started paying attention to the fact that NO ONE has bare legs here!  We may not be seeing any more skirts in this trip.  (FYI, Taylor made Brittany’s skirt.)

Glamor girls …

There were several small children at the presentation.

Then, after the dancers, the emperor and his court came into the temple.

Here is the emperor and emperess.

Inside the temple, there was an area that you could lay a gift if you wanted to have a child.  I’m thinking that I pretty much laid MOST of these gifts out there!

These are shingles that you could pay for and receive a blessing.  Hmmmmm ….where in our history have we heard something like THAT before????

Here is the crew in front of just one a numerous temples on the land.  There must have been 50 – 60 acres that were covered by all the buildings.

This is still an active temple and people do come here to pay their respects and give an offering.

Below is a carving done completely in wood.  It is hard, in picture form, to catch how amazingly intricate the carving was.  This is a god with all kinds of little gods surrounding her.  I have no idea how long this must have taken to complete.

The entrance to one of the main buildings.

Brittany and Caleb bonded a little on this outing!  I guess that is what the outings are for, huh?

Huh?

Kelly and Taylor … ladies in red…

Another statue of a god.  One side faces South and is happy (I think) and the other faces North and is angry.  Don’t ask me why …

All the buildings were made without the use of nails.  The wood was slide together in a locking manner.  Then, that wood was painted.  This lead to some really pretty woodwork.

OK, so this next statue was carved completely out of wood and had to be at least twenty feet high or more.  It amazed me how much time people would spend on something that is, quite frankly, meaningless.

Here is what typically happens when we are out.  In the first picture, our guide, Robert, is telling everyone about the next building.  Caleb is listening until he sees me, then it is a bee-line straight towards me, usually so he can ask me to show him the picture of himself that I have just taken.

In front of each of the temple buildings is an incense pot where you can light your incense as part of your sacrifice.

I thought the wooden god was impressive, but the next one blew the wooden thing away.  This statue is 22 METERS high!  I hope you can see how intricate it is.  They made it by building up an earthen tower that was over 22 meters high.  Then, workers dug down into the earth and made a form from the inside.  Once completed, they filled the form with some type of material (I don’t remember what) and when they broke away the earth, this is the statue that was left.  Robert said it took 30-years to make this thing.  I’m thinking he MAY have pulled that number out of the air, but it definitely took a VERY, VERY long time.  In the end, more wasted time ….

Here is a few from the top of the big statues building looking back on a part of the park.

All the rooftops had this ornate soldiers and dragons along the roofline.

Here is our little group, standing on a bridge high up in the air that was made almost 2,000 years ago.  Makes you feel pretty confident!

All along the side there were these support buildings. I think they used some of them to restore pieces from the temples.

Along the roof line of all the buildings is just a ton more carvings, etc.

This statue was a gift from the emperor (I have no idea which one) to his mother-in-law.  I hope my mother-in-law isn’t expecting something like this.  It has 1,064 budda’s carved into it.  They brought it into this building in the winter by building a ramp out of the ground, covering it with water, waiting for it to freeze, and then they pulled the statue up into the building.  Pretty smart!

Out behind the temples there was a park that some rich guy had donated.

Caleb and Kelly at the top of the rock structure.

Brittany posing.

On the way out, there was a large pond that was feed by a spring.  It was full of Coy fish, which we took a few minutes to feed.

A few final shots as we headed out of the park.

I will fill you in on the afternoon activities in the next blog.

Cameron

I didn’t get a chance to put these pictures up last night.  Lazy I guess.  Caleb got his first taste of Play-Dough yesterday afternoon.  He enjoyed playing with it.

He and I wrestled for awhile yesterday afternoon.  He about wore me out.  He wanted me to do it again this afternoon and how can you say no to such a cute little kid??

We went for a little walk before dinner.  Here are a couple of pictures off the main street.

Brittany did a little shopping in the Nike store … not!  It was super expensive!

Here is the base for ANOTHER huge sky scraper.

And a view of the busy roadway.

A busy town like this actually has bike lanes on each side of the main road, which I’m sure makes it much safer for the riders!

I’m including this picture because the guy doesn’t want me to take his picture.  Really?  After all the people who have stared at us and taken our picture, you think a little hand wave will stop me???

These two guys were yelling at each other about the price of his fruit.

We had dinner at Pizza Hut, which is most Asian countries is more than just a Pizza Hut we would have at home.  They have a full menu with about anything you can think of on it.  Here were our fru-fru drinks, without the umbrellas.  I would have liked umbrellas.

And, a shot of our pretty much American pizza.

We came home and watch a Chinese version of Kung Fu Panda that we bought on our walk.  Taylor and I enjoyed reading the subtitles in English, but Caleb was a little too tired to really appreciate the humor!

I will post the pictures from today a little later.  We are heading up the street to a park.  We have been looking for a park for days, only to find out that it is about 1500 feet up the street in the ONE direction we have not yet gone!  Nice …

Cameron

  What a difference a few days and a few hundred kilometers can make!  (Like that kilometer talk?  I’m becoming international in my daily conversation!)(Funny, huh, Hannah????)

The Great Wall of China was pretty cool in Beijing, but it was SO different here in Shijiazhuang City (looks like I just threw a bunch of letters together, huh?)(Funny again, huh Hannah???).  Beijing was VERY touristy and almost sort of “perfect.”  And, we went there on a Saturday so there were a ton of people.  It was cool because of how far you could go up the mountain as Taylor and I found out, becoming Chinese hero’s and all.

But here in Shijianzhuang City, it was very authentic.  Everything LOOKED a couple thousand years old, like you had gone back in time to see it when it was in use.  Even down to the ruts that were made by the wooden wagon wheels as they carried supplies through the interior of the wall.  You also were able to walk through all the passageways and tight stairwells that made up the inside of the walls. I thought the experience was a lot better here than it was in Beijing.  Plus, for most of the morning, we were the only ones there, so we got a lot of personal attention.

I’m sorry that there are going to be a TON of pictures again, but there were so many things to see that I had a hard time narrowing it down.

The day started with our first breakfast at the new hotel.  We had visions of a Western breakfast, but in the end it wasn’t much different!  However, we did see TWO caucasians at breakfast, which helped us now that we were not alone! 

Brittany thought she had SCORED with a bowl of Cocoa Puffs!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as she was expecting…  Taylor enjoyed her morning cup of tea!

And her piece of chocolate cake!  Really, Tay?  For BREAKFAST??

Taylor challenged me to try the Duck Neck.  Seriously.  It was right below the whole fish with eyes and all.  Just what you were looking for for breakfast, huh?  Anyway, I got one and ate it and, quite frankly, it was pretty good.  Spicy but good.  Not to be out done, Brittany ate one, too!  When we told our guide later he looked at Brittany with nothing short of admiration!  Tomorrow she is planning on trying the fish with the eyeballs, but Kelly has said that she won’t allow that at our table!

We arrived at the Great Wall around 10:00, after a LONG drive from the hotel!

You are kind of in luck because I just noticed several pictures didn’t upload, but I’m tired of fighting with the internet connection (and Brittany is bored and wants to play Webkins) so I will skip ahead!

You can imagine below that if it was THIS tight for Brittany, how tight it was for me!

There was a section where they had a display chronicling all the kingdom’s of China and their emperors.

Taylor shows us all her muscles!

Brittany makes new friends…

Here are the very STEEP stairs you had to go up to get to were the above pictures were taken.

And the room at the top of the stairs.

The guide SO wanted me to take this picture.  I have NO idea why…

Brittany man handles a canon for the Chinese army!  She thought Jacob might like this.

Kelly, Caleb, and Taylor …

Here is the family at the top of the part that we were allowed to view today.  We are not sure if we had to stop this high because it was a requirement of the park or if our guide was just tired of us.  It could really have been either one!

 Kelly at one of the external entrances to the wall were scouts could come and look for advancing enemies.

This was a common view.  We would let Caleb’s hand go and one of us (Brittany in this case) would have to chase him.  By this time of the day we had gotten smart enough to have a blocker down-field (Kelly in this case).

Caleb is enjoying riding on my shoulders.

Brittany and Caleb play “peek-a-boo!”  I think we may be TOTALLY tired of this little game in the near future as Caleb likes to play it all the time!

A courtyard where we finally were allowed to let Caleb run.  Until he found the opening to the stairs that lead down to the drainage tunnels.  That ended his freedom for the morning.

The Chinese made these huge tunnels under the wall to divert water out during heavy rains.  I’m not sure how they protected themselves from the enemy advancing through these tunnels, but it was pretty cool.  I guess the tunnels probably ran back into China and away from the Mongolians?

That is it for today.  We were not supposed to go back out to the Great Wall today, but it was definitely worth the $80 it cost for the day!  Tomorrow we head out to a temple somewhere.  More pictures to follow.

Cameron

 Today was a pretty good day.  The hotel change, some slightly more familiar surroundings, and a dinner that, while not as good as back home, sure was close for this area of the world.  We were talking today and realized that, in the city we are currently in, which is a medium sized Chinese city of eight million people, we have not seen ONE other caucasian.  Wow … that is very strange.  In fact, we have seen NO other nationality except for Chinese yet!  And, since we noticed that, I have really been looking out to see if I can find someone different and as yet I have not.

This afternoon Kelly pulled out a puzzle for Caleb and he took to it immediately!  He probably worked on that thing for an hour, taking it apart, putting it back together!  He seems to have so little focus and then you give him some opportunities to focus and he does great.  Earlier today he played by himself for probably 20 – 30 minutes.  Here he is working on the puzzles.

This afternoon Taylor and Brittany started playing “I’m gonna get you” with Caleb.  He loved it.  He would try and sneak up on Taylor and then, when she would go after him, he would come running back to safety with me.  It has been SUCH a blessing having those two girls here with us.  I don’t know what we would have done without them.  After our walk this afternoon, Brittany insisted on serving us all tea and did a wonderful job.  I could get used to this kind of treatment!!  Here are several pictures of the kids wrestling around this afternoon.

We quickly found a mall next door to the hotel with a great grocery store in the basement.  Has anything that we might want to have to get through our hungry times.  I was able to find Diet Pepsi there, which is very hard to find here as not many Chinese NEED diet pop.  Well, they don’t need regular pop either, but you know what I mean.  This society is so thin.  I honestly hate watching them eat at KFC or McDonalds just because you know what the eventual outcome will be.  We are glad to see the comfort food, but it would be better for them as a society just not to have it here.  This is the escalator down to the grocery store.  For some reason I didn’t take a picture of the actual store itself.  Next time we are down there I will do that.

We went out for pizza tonight at dinner at a Western Steakhouse.  The food was acceptable.  At least it wasn’t Chinese!

Yeah, I know … I talked about how bad the food is for these people and then I show a picture of my own kid drinking a Sprite.  Oh well … I’m a hypocrite.

We had noticed earlier in the day that when Caleb was jumping off the window ledge into our room (yes, he is much like Luke), he was saying “1 – 2 – 3.”  Obviously, he has had some sort of education already.  At dinner, he was getting a little restless, so we gave him a pencil and a piece of paper.  Next thing we looked down and he had written his English numbers, 1 – 11, just a plain as could be!  I’m not sure if you can see it on this picture:

We thought that was pretty impressive, so Brittany, being the educator of the group, decided to write the alphabet on a napkin and gave it to him.  As soon as he saw it, he started saying his ABC’s all the way through … no problem.  Brittany started handing him pieces of paper with words on it and he copied them in quite good penmanship … maybe even better than some of my older kids!  I am going to drop him off in front of a piano one of these days.  I’m sure he can play that, too!  You will be seeing us on Good Morning America int he near future!

Night time is the worst time for Caleb.  He gets tired and then starts thinking of his foster family and has some quiet emotional issues.  Kelly and I sat with him tonight and helped him work through some of them.

Poor little guy.  He ended up crying himself to sleep a little bit.  Even though he doesn’t show it during the day, I’m sure this has to be hard on him!  He is such a happy little guy, you hate to see this.

Cameron