An Online Journal of Our Adoption Journey

The Trip to China

Here is our complete email log as we journeyed to China to get Autumn.  Choice pictures of the trip are included.  Click on a picture to get a large version.

Our last Spend List is Here.  We now know that the prediction that we'd spend between twenty and twenty-five grand is correct.  We spent $23,474.  It was worth every cent.

{From Bruce}
Lise and I are all packed and ready to go. Our flight leaves San Diego at 9:30 this evening. It's a puddle jump to LAX, then the big leap across the giant puddle that is the pacific ocean. We'll miss half of St. Patrick's Day as we cross the international dateline and go from Monday to Tuesday. Hopefully we won't be too green in celebration!

After a couple of hours in Seoul, Korea, we'll be off on a few hour flight to Beijing. By Tuesday noonish we should be in China. Timewise, we'll be subtracting a day and adding eight hours to figure out what time it is in California. So it'll be around 8 at night Monday PST when we get to China.

We'll try to keep everyone up to date on all of the adventure!

March 17

{From Bruce}
We made it across the pacific! Twelve and a half hours. It went pretty well, the puddle jump to LAX was smooth. Then we hopped a shuttle to the main terminal, then had to hop another to get to the international terminal. Got onboard no problem. Met one other member of our adoption group, Melanie with her adopted eight-year old daughter, Libby, and Melanie`s friend from Chicago, Nancie.

We are now sitting at a ~free~ internet station in the international airport of Incheon, just outside of Seoul. In

I should go to allow other people access to this station. It`s a Japanese computer so I`m having fun with the keyboard. It has a ton of extra control strokes available.

{From Bruce}
The last leg was comfy, we managed to get seats in the business class section so we could stretch out. And they served lunch, even though the flight was only an hour and a half.

We were dead tired by the time we got to the hotel... Customs at the airport was quick, but boy did the guy scowl at us! Almost darth vader-like.

We met our guide, Nancy, once out of the airport. A young, thin, and always smiling woman, she trundled us off to a shuttle bus quickly.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was about thirty minutes and Nancy took the time to tell us a few pointers... ones I've already read. So I took pictures and watched all the building go by.

Flying in we saw farmland, factories, and tall apartments all squished together. No suburbs at all, no front lawns, or rows and rows of single homes.

The hotel is really nice. A fancy place with staff everywhere. We feel seriously waited on.

I swam a few laps in there pool (bathing cap required! -- which I bought there), and Lise hit the fitness center. Then we crashed hard. Managed to get up long enough for dinner then went back to bed. Slept until 4am local time.

We had their complementary breakfast buffet at 6:30 and now I'm writing this from their Internet station in the hotel -- 10 RMB for ten minutes. ($1 = 8.2 RMB).

March 19

{From Bruce}
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We then walked on to the Temple of the Sun, a park with lots of rocks and winding paths. People exercising, mostly older couples, waving their arms or doing Ti chi. At a few places a couple of older men were playing a single string instrument while a woman sang hauntingly. They were draining a large pond, and men were out in the muck catching the dying carp.

On the way back we hit a local mall, and in a grocery store bought some bottled water (1.70 - about $0.20) and coke, and hand lotion! -- which we had forgotten.  My hands were already cracked from the dry air.

We ate at a Pizza Hut for lunch... I know, how authentic. But we were thirsty and it was on the way. They had cream of mushroom soup and escargot on the menu. The pizza was good, with less tomato sauce on it (just the way Susan likes it!)

In the evening, back at the hotel, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. No one spoke much English and we had to point to the menu -- it had English below the names.  The food was good, but my fingers got stiff using the chop sticks. I ordered a beer and it came in a huge, 30 ounce or so bottle, for 12 RMB ($1.50).

There we ran into more travel mates who had just came in. Sandy and her friend, Elisa, and Susan and her friend Naznen (sp?). They told us about the fingerprint panic.

Apparently, in the infinite wisdom of the US government, the new agency that took over the INS has decided to expire all fingerprint searches more than 15 months old, and requiring all to redo them if they are older than that. We did our fingerprinting in the summer of 2001 -- more than 15 months ago.

Holt sent us an email Sunday night (to my Cox account) warning everyone that they HAD to get new fingerprinting done or the US consulate in Guangzhou won't allow them to process. Our travel mates had scrambled to get new ones in on Monday. But we didn't even know about it until last night.

So at 2 AM we called Holt in Eugene, Oregon in a panic. Steve told us not to worry, that those who are already in China will be given a waiver... hopefully he's correct.

Today we go on our first official tour!

--Bruce and Lise, using way too much Internet time,
and a bit worried about this whole fingerprinting thing.

March 20

{From Bruce}
Fingerprinting:

Summer Palace:
The place is huge. We could have easily spent a couple of days there. A lake, a hill, a Buddhist temple, palace grounds, dragon boats, all surrounded by an elegant park.

We walked through it in about three hours, looking at all the wonderful structures and walking along a really long covered walkway with over 8,000 paintings [Editor's Note: actually, over 40 thousand] on the ceiling.

Nancy gave us a wonderful history lesson on the place, but I don't want to use a lot of time explaining it here. But Annette and Ailene would have been bummed, we passed several gift shops and didn't stop. And when we did go into one we only had like five minutes to look around.

As we left we had to do the vendor gauntlet. Thirty men, women, and teenagers hounding us to buy their wares, sticking them under our noses and stepping right into our way. Lise was seriously mobbed after she bought one set of postcards for 2 RMB ($0.25).

Another family has joined us: John, Teresa, and their ten year old son Chase (not adopted). They're from Washington state. Now I'm not the only guy in the group, finally!

John managed to buy a North Face jacket, probably a knock-off, from one of the vendors for 110 RMB (~$14). It looks really nice.

The Lama Temple:

The temple was very wonderful, a series of tall red buildings, each with progressively larger buddhas. The last one was a standing buddha over 30 meters high made from a single sandalwood tree and gilded in gold. The building was constructed around it. Lots of incense burning, people coming up and doing a quick three-bow pray on their knees. Lise and I prayed at one smaller buddha for peace and understanding.

It brought back a lot of memories of my early teenage years of studying eastern philosophy.

Today we go to the Great Wall! Woo-hoo!

--we love you all, and are starting to miss all the little things about home.

{From Bruce}
The Great Wall was, well, great! It snaked over tall  hills in a way that most walls don't. Very steep in some places, with stone steps all of varying sizes, other places just a steep ramp of stone. As a Hun I'd be one disappointed puppy upon seeing the great wall in my way.

It took us an hour or so to get up to the part of the Great Wall that we visited. We passed a half-finished Disney-land like place that was apparently started years ago and then the developer went broke.

Once again we had to run the vendor gauntlet at the wall, some were even up on the wall itself. It must be strange for people here to go to the Grand Canyon and not be hounded by vendors as they walked along the edge.

We had a group photo taken that came out very nice...

Today is our first official day of adoption stuff. We have our orientation this morning, and will be flying to Wuhan first thing tomorrow morning.

March 22

{From Bruce}
Last night we went to a famous Peking Duck restaurant in the heart of Beijing. Nancy kept telling us it's the place where 'Father Bush' had Peking Duck, meaning Bush, senior. Sure enough, when we got there they had a picture of Bush on the wall.

The food was wonderful, and they kept filling up the glasses of beer and plum wine. We all got pretty sloppy. I'm getting better with chop sticks and the little Peking Duck burritos were very tasty!

This morning was our orientation with Holt. A very nice British sort of guy by the name of Les told us that all was well, and don't worry about a thing. No way, he said, would the US Consulate stop people from processing through, because did they really want 400 families with babies on their hands, not being able to go home? We'll get waivers.

He told us to pretend this was grade school, and just relax and follow what the guide tells us to do. A lot of the documentation we'll be filling out is entirely in Chinese, so the guide will tell us what to put where, just like in grade school.

Tomorrow morning early we check out of the hotel and go to the airport. We'll be flying to Wuhan in the late morning, a couple of hour flight. He said not to expect the babies until Monday morning. But I've heard from a number of people on past trips who got their baby on the first afternoon, even though up to that point people were saying the next morning... So we could be down to less than 24 hours now before the 'birth' of this 2 year pregnancy.

We'll be staying in Wuhan for a week, filling out documents, meeting with officials, and bonding with our child, before traveling down to Guangzhou.

This afternoon we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Both places are HUGE. A lot of walking. Giant, giant buildings and temples. Lots of other tourists. Vendors hawking their wares, mostly postcard packs, hats, kites, and little booklets.

Several people came up to me and wanted a picture with a tall white guy. I guess I was quite the spectacle.  I felt like I was one of those costumed furries at Disneyland. I just smiled and stood next to people.

Tonight we had a craving for just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with milk, so we hit the grocery store and had dinner in our room. Like I said, it's the little things you begin to miss.

I filled up my first SmartMedia card today, all 350 pictures worth! At this rate we'll have a thousand photos of China! I wish I could send some of them, but these computers are ancient, and don't have USB.

March 22

{From Bruce}
Just a quick note that we've arrived in Wuhan. It's a good ten or fifteen degrees warmer here.

Tomorrow we get Autumn! It looks like March 24th will be her Gotcha Day! We are getting really nervous.  They brought a crib for us to use in the room. It's really, really happening. Wow.

The hotel, the Shangri-La, is quite the four-star place. Very posh.

I'll post more later.

March 24, 2003

[Editor's Note: Many pictures of Autumn can be seen at the Home Page]

March 25

{From Lise}
We went back to the Civil Affairs Building today to complete the formal adoption. Tell you all about it when time (online) is not money, but it was very nice. Now we are legally Autumn's parents. She did not like going back to that building -- she cried, then got very quiet and depressed until after we had been there for awhile with nothing horrible and traumatic happening.

She had another fun day of playing with us, but is not so good now. She has eczema on her feet, according to the doctor who looked at them, and it seems to be on her neck and the edge of her scalp now too. At least I hope that's what it is. The rash on her feet is responding well to hydrocortisone, but she has been itchy and uncomfortable around the neck this evening. She was asleep when I left to write this, but who knows. I hope she get through the night like she did last night (slept like an angel who had a very full day).

We are trying to live more frugally here in Wuhan, where the prices seem much higher than they were in Beijing. Thank goodness breakfast is free.

{From Bruce}
We are going to go across to the library this afternoon with the local Holt guide. We'll see if anyone there remembers the event.

This morning we went to the Yellow Crane Tower park.  It's a beautiful hilltop park with a very tall pagoda tower and bell. From the top we got a great view of the Wuhan orphanage only about a kilometer north of the park.

Autumn Dongxia is doing pretty well, all things considered. She had her first bath yesterday, and put up with it rather well. But in the evening she fussed and got upset, and scratched her hair and head a lot.  We thought it might be a rash, but we see no redness or swelling or bumps. She was rather sweaty, though, so she could be prone to heat rash.

The weather has been really pleasant, wonderful, really. There's still a haze in the air, but blue sky dominates. Going from Beijing to Wuhan is a little like going from Washington DC to St. Louis. Beijing was so official, while Wuhan seems much more like a typical Chinese city.

There are smokers, and lots of dirty alleyways and roof tops, but not as dirty as I was lead to believe there would be. Now that we have the kid people stare and watch us even more. Mothers and kids come up and talk to Autumn, and ask us question we don't understand. I show the mothers the translation card I have stating that we have come to China to adopt this wonderful baby. They smile and clap their hands. All very nice. We've been keeping her bundled up with two layers of clothes so people won't think we're exposing her too much. So no wonder she sweats in this warmth. Today it easily reached 75 or so.

Thanks, everyone, for your replies, I've read them as quickly as possible, but not responded because the clock is ticking on this connection. And even though it is only 1 Yuan per minute, it adds up.

--Bruce & Lise  & Autumn, who once she fell asleep, once again made it all the way through the night.

March 27

{From Lise}
Let's see... I told you about the official adoption, the brief version, anyway.

Autumn is doing well. I will try to just give you the highlights as I know how boring other people's children can be. Her feet and scalp are doing fine; we think now that the latter was just heat rash. She is getting fussier about going down for the night because things are just too exciting, but once down, she sleeps through the night just fine. She loves to eat but does not understand about stopping when full. We let her stuff herself yesterday and paid for it when she spit everything back up at about 9 PM, just after falling asleep. She was so tired, she almost fell back asleep while upchucking. She is definitely attaching to us because she gets very anxious when I leave the room (and is getting very vocal about her anxiety now) and has a fit if we both leave. She still doesn't like bus rides and greets them with a sigh of depression. She is making more of an effort to stand up and to struggle toward interesting toys, but she is still a wobbly baby gazelle at best. We consider ourselves lucky, as there is an 18-month-old baby here who is even smaller and does not walk or crawl. She's awfully cute, though, and has a very elfin face.

Annette, I think you asked if Autumn looks like her pictures. Yes, she does when she's quiet or worried about something. She has a beautiful smile that you haven't seen yet.

We visited the Yellow Crane Tower yesterday, and a cultural museum today, where we heard some incredible chamber music played upon a set of bells that were invented 2500 years ago. Tomorrow (Friday) we go back to Civil Affairs to pick up Autumn's passport, then possibly we will get to visit the orphanage. We have already visited her abandonment site. I believe Bruce told everybody it was right across the street from the hotel. I am sitting inside it now, in fact, because it provides internet service for 3 Yuan (forty cents) an hour instead of 1 Yuan a minute.

Saturday, we fly to Guangzhou. I am really looking forward to getting home, although it will be very tiring trying to get Autumn back on schedule once she gets eight hours suddenly put into her day. Hope you're up to staying up a little late, Mom.

March 28

{From Bruce}
The past few days have gone by quickly, and slowly.  We've been back to the civil affairs building a total of two more times for various things, plus tourist trips to a hilltop park called Yellow Crane Tower, a large lake on the east side of town -- apply named East Lake, a provincial museum, and a turquoise factory. And, today, after our official child visas were given to us at the civil affairs office, to the Wuhan orphanage.

The library visit across the street went pretty well, we walked around a bit, and talked to a few people (Tracy was with us as a translator), and took some pictures. Didn't find out any new information about Autumn's abandonment -- no one we met knew of the event -- but at least we got to see the second floor (the floor on which she was left). They say a lot of students come to the library, but so do a lot of the general public. Tracy was a bit uncomfortable. I'm sure it's hard, the Chinese generally don't like to talk about social ills that exist in their society.  Child abandonment is just not spoken about, particularly with foreigners. But, they did let us take pictures.

We also find that they have an internet connection lab on the third floor for only 3 RMB an hour (~$0.40) rather than the 1 RMB per minute in the hotel.  Unfortunately, it's been hard to get the time to go over there, and they are open only during the day.  Hence I'm in the hotel, because it's 9:30 at night and Autumn is asleep.

She has become much more comfortable with us, but that has come at a price. She is demanding, and we tag team all day long. At least she still sleeps through the night.

It's looking like her scratching of her head is a nervous thing, most of the other kids in the group have it as well. When she's happy or distracted, she doesn't touch her head. But the moment she's upset her hand goes up and starts in.

Cheerios are a godsend. She always likes to have them. The Snuggli works great (Thanks Chris and Susan!) she fits in it just right. I think, though, we'll be renting a stroller in Guangzhou as a change of pace. We fly there tomorrow.

The White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou is famous amongst adopters. It is near the US Consulate and caters to the parents. Since all US adoptions from China must go through the US Consulate there, the White Swan does a brisk business. They have strollers to rent, childcare, and cribs in the rooms. There is a large indoor garden with a large waterfall. I'm looking for to it.

We've been doing some shopping, but trying to take it easy, item-weight-wise. Once in Guangzhou we won't have the inner China flight weight allowance of only 20 kg (44 pounds) holding us back. We can add another 26 pounds each! Plus another 70 for Autumn for our international flight!

I doubt we'll buy that much...

Now I need to sign off and get some sleep. Autumn gave me her first present two days ago -- a cold.

--Bruce & Lise & Autumn Dongxia, which the orphanage doctor called 'scha-scha' (Xia-Xia) and loved the little California sandals we had her in.

{From Bruce}
We made it to Guangzhou. It was an easy flight, not too crowded. We had three seats to ourselves. Autumn took her first plane ride well, squirmed a bit, but liked the rice that came with lunch. Airline food on China flights have been wonderful. Really good stuff, and they feed you a whole meal even though our flight was only one hour and 25 minutes.

The guide, Kathryn, met us at the airport (notice how all the guides have English names? They do it on purpose, every guide we met has chosen an English name for tourists to use... it's not their real name). She is nice, but like in Wuhan with our tour guide Spring, she's a bit loud on the bus speaker, and her English uses the same pattern over and over, which can be a trying.

The air was warm and sticky. Very thick, a tropic sort of heat. After cold Beijing and cool Wuhan it was quite a change.

The White Swan hotel is just amazing. It has a huge indoor waterfall in the main courtyard. Lots of statuary and bonsai trees everywhere. And it's all for sale. Huge, really huge, jade statues. I took many photos of the stuff. If I'm ever rich I know where to go to get my Asian artwork.

However, they overcompensate for the heat by cranking the A/C. The room was freezing. And we've noticed that the rooms have been getting smaller with each hotel, yet the prices have been going up.

But what we have seen so far of Guangzhou is just beautiful... We're right next to the Pearl River and we walked around in the early evening just amazed at the nice views. And once the sun went down it became very pleasant.

We rented a stroller for 10 Yuan a day (~$1.25). Holt has an office right in the hotel but it's only open M-F. The guide said they have tons of stuff that was left behind by other families, including strollers, some come Monday we'll probably switch out.

Autumn likes the stroller just fine, as long as we keep moving.

The guide warned us about the new flu running around, and told us to stay away from large crowds. She said something about 900 people have gotten the illness.  Of course, Guangzhou has around 16 million people so our odds are good. We do, however, plan on doing our best to avoid hospitals.

I have gotten over my cold, and Autumn seems to be on the way to getting rid of it herself. She still coughs a bit, particularly in the middle of the night and in the first part of the morning, but generally is doing well.

We're holding up pretty well ourselves, but we are definitely homesick. We miss Marlowe, our friends, our home, and our own bed. How anyone can do a round-the-world sort of tour is beyond me. We're just no longer interested in sitting on a bus while we get driven to another historic site where upon arrival we're constantly hawked at by the local vendors.

Kathryn pointed out a small place a couple of hundred yards from the hotel that has Internet stations for rent at 20 RMB per hour (~$2.50/hour).

It looks like it has a USB connection so next time I'm here I'll try to send a few choice pictures of the 600 hundred or so we have.

Autumn is still not crawling, but she does walk along if you hold her hands. She's become quite the squirmer at times, and rolls around on the bed much more than she did just a few days ago.

We had our first diaper explosion back in Wuhan on the day we went to the turquoise factory... made quite a mess.... but generally she's been really good... and that's probably enough information along those lines...

We may have to actually pay to have our laundry done here. We tried to do our own last night, but it's so humid here they are still completely wet.

We do official paperwork tomorrow, and the US Consulate visit on Wednesday. Thursday we fly for home!

--Bruce and Lise & little Autumn, who may never know her name since we use three: Dongxia, Autumn, and Scha-Scha.

{From Bruce}
Yesterday I got hit by a stomach bug. Uhg. Lise had to deal with Autumn most of the day. I'm the fourth of the group to fall prey to this bacterial flu. My body dealt with it by emptying my entire digestion system as quick as possible -- by the closest exit.

But by this morning I felt better, just a little weak in the knees.

Today we hit the US Consulate for the swearing in ceremony... Lise did the paperwork yesterday while I did my best with Autumn. Security is so tight we can't take anything in there, not a stroller, no camera, no diaper bag, only one diaper per kid. They say it takes only about fifteen minutes but we'll see.

It used to be that parents would spend a whole morning or afternoon there, doing paperwork, meeting with a doctor and the officials. But now it's all done ahead of time in the hotel Holt office, except with the official swearing part.

Tomorrow we should get her US visa and that'll be it.  Thursday we fly!

Autumn enjoys the playroom, and particularly likes the walker. At this point she's quite the grabber from other kids. Sharing doesn't seem to be a concept she's familiar with yet.

The weather here is warm and muggy or cool and muggy.  It only varies maybe ten degrees at most, but it's always very humid. Summer here must be a bear.

The smells are very rich and chaotic. As you take a stroll the scent of jasmine floats on the air, suddenly followed by the stench of raw sewage. Weird.

We tried to go to the Hard Rock Cafe here in Guangzhou two nights ago but it was closed. So we ate at a nearby McDonalds. And here Lise swore her daughter would never be caught there! And yes, like most kids, she loves french fries. But ice cream is just too weird for her. She squirrels her face up at the cold stuff and pushes it away.

--Bruce (who is recovering as quick as he can) & Lise (who got to have the morning to herself after the all day ordeal yesterday) & Autumn (who is moving more and more, rolling around on the bed and flinging herself backwards at a moment's notice)

April 2

{From Bruce}
Soon we'll be winging our way home. We miss it so much.

Yesterday we did the group swearing ceremony at the US Consulate. The visas were all handled behind the scenes. It used to be that parents spent a whole morning or afternoon there doing the visa application and all, but now with security very tight they have us all troop in together and spend only about 45 minutes there as they visually match passports to people.  Then we all swear that the information we've given is true and correct. That's it.

Today we got Autumn's passport back and we're all set. No fingerprint problem whatsoever. It wasn't even mentioned.

We fly out tomorrow. Luckily we fly directly from Guangzhou to Seoul. Many couples are doing a short hop to Hong Kong, then on to the states. But with the SARS scare many are worried about the Hong Kong airport.

Both Lise and I are doing our best to deal with the day to day stuff, but it'll be nice to have Grandma lend a hand. Autumn will be eight hours out of synch when we get home, so it'll be interesting getting her adjusted -- not to mention getting us adjusted.

We hit the pool for a short while today, Autumn enjoyed splashing at the water from the edge.  Weatherwise, it has been very humid and warm.

That's it, time to go turn in. Thanks everyone, for putting up with all of these emails. I hope you have enjoyed reading of our travels. And we'll see most of you soon! And the rest of you later!