Guiyang

Feb. 15-17

So after we were official we still had to WAIT...they had to take all our paperwork to the notary office and apply for his passport. So we had 2 days of time to burn in Guiyang. We were feeling pretty defeated when it came to this city but glad Jackie offered to take us out for the day.

So Feb. 15, we went to "Monkey Mountain" it is a beautiful national park feel with mountains and a lake. There is a lot of room for all the retired community to do their "exercises", square dancing, and we saw one grandpa teaching his family martial arts. In China a lot of the grandparents take the kids for the day while the parents work. So they take them to the park with them for the morning, will then stop at the market to buy things for dinner and will prepare the family meal for the evening.

There were monkeys EVERYWHERE and these monkeys are a lot like the squirrels on a college campus, not afraid of humans, will steal food/water bottles/trash out of your bags. We saw a monkey actually drinking out of a bottle and our guide said he has even heard of the monkeys smoking discarded cigarettes.

We also got to visit a budhist temple and learn about the different ways of entry into the temple, the different gods they would pray to, this temple was very popular with the younger crowd. The men would come praying for wives and the couples would come praying for fertility.

After that we went to Ancient Town Guiyang. It looks almost like the great wall from afar but it contained the Ancient Town of Guiyang, the walls were used to guard them from the minority groups/tribes in the area. There are really cool winding paths of vendors and shops. They would sell, food, spices, toys, clothes, bags. There was even a Christian Church there. Here we ate at a local noodle restaurant and I got to change Theo in my first squatty potty bathroom without falling in!

Feb. 16th

We had a travel day coming up so we stayed close to the hotel. Slept in (well Theo did), ate breakfast at the hotel, packed up our bags, colored, watched movies and when they needed to clean our room we went out to explore the park across the street a little bit and stopped in some shops. Theo was having a sad day, I think he knew things were really changing as we packed up the room and prepared to leave. His crying episodes were devastating to listen to they were long and low and just filled with such sadness. He would lay on the floor and we would let him, we wouldn't try and force him to us but eventually if we sat close when he was ready he would come to us for comfort. It was our first real peak into parenting this little boy through all his trauma of the first 3 1/2 years of his life.

Fe. 17th

We had the morning to burn so we took out after breakfast before the streets and parks get too crowded so we could go see where Theo had been found at only 10 days old. He was found at the gates of Hebin Park which was not too far from our hotel. It is a big park with amusement type rides and lots of gardens and a restaurant. We didn't even see all of it in the time we had. We felt that we needed to go and tell Theo when he's older that we did, that we did all we could to bring his history home with us. He will have questions some day and I won't be able to answer all of them but I can give him this. That he was carried safely in his carrier by a daddy who loves him in the exact same spot that he was left as a baby, an orphan.

later in the afternoon...

HERE WE COME GUANGZHOU!!!

First flight with a kiddo and we have 3 at home so this was really hard on us and super stressful for me. He screamed at take off because he hated the seat  belt and having to stay in his seat. We probably would have been fine but they made us wait for potential connectors and we sat for almost half an hour longer then necessary. Once in the air he was fine with some Curious George and snacks.

We were so happy to be on to the next step of this journey and one step closer to home! Not to mention our friends the Reads from our group in Beijing would be back with us...Matt and I felt like we were the unofficial 7th and 8th members of their family.