Care for bugs for dinner?

Amongst all the turtles, frogs, snakes, lobsters, oysters, fish and eels being sold on the wharf in Guangzhou at the seafood market, there were also many vendors that had water bugs and grubs for sale.

For dinner. Play the video to see the wriggling...

3:30am

Well, it is 3:30 and Rachael's body doesn't know if it is a.m or p.m. (For the record it is a.m Eastern Daylight time, p.m. China time.) Everyone else is sound asleep and Rachael is wide eyed and ready to go, although a little grumpy. Me? I would be asleep too if I had my way, but someone has to watch her. She was a bear to get to sleep last night at well. Ganggang on the other hand had no problem falling fast asleep.

He did pretty well seeing his new home for the first time. We had sent a photo album that the orphanage staff has obviously showed him multiple times. His face lit up when he saw it and he was able to point out different people in it. As we entered our neighborhood, we got out the album and showed him the pictures of Emily and Grandma and Grandpa pointing to them. We then showed him the picture of the house and his room. When we pulled in the drive, he pointed to the house and then to the book with a big smile.

Ganggang seems to really like his top bunk and got a big grin when we put him into it. His only complaint about Columbus so far seems to be the fact that we have two cats. He has no experience with cats other than pictures in a book. He is scared of them and backs away or wants up when they come near. Oh well, he will have to learn to deal with them. We just keep petting them and telling him they are good. We are also encouraging Rae to pet and kiss them when Ganggang can see her do it.

English

Tonight we clearly heard Robby use his first two English words. Taylor walked into the room and he said, "Hi". Later when my parents left, Robby waved and said, "Bye". What a smart boy we have!

I am off to get the kids and then myself into bed now. How wonderful it will be to sleep in my own bed.

HOME!!

Twenty-five hours after leaving our hotel in Guangzhou this morning we arrived at our front door. We are tired, weary, worn-out and happy to be home. Did I mention that we were out of energy? Our flights, though long, were uneventful and all our luggage arrived at the airport with us. Dan especially was hammered hard, still getting over his sickness, and wasn't able to sleep on the first two flights due to childcare issues. However, we're all tired and strung out, and are looking forward to bed.

The only snag of the day was the two hours it took us to get through immigration in Detroit. This was extra frustrating due to the fact that we only had a 90 minute layover. The line of international arrivals who had missed their connecting flight was long, but we were able to arrange for a flight that left just under two hours later than our original flight. Stay tuned for more updates during the days and weeks to come.

Sick - but not of china!

I was sick Monday and most of Tuesday, with some kind of bug that wore me out and made me weak, along with the Traveler's Scourge -- nuf sed.  While the family went out shopping and on a river cruise, I spent the day in bed sleeping and reading, except for two hours in the lobby and by the pool waiting for housekeeping to clean the room.  Fortunately, it seems to mostly have run it's course, and was likely just something I ate Sunday, perhaps at KFC. 

Besides being cooped up and not able to enjoy the resort, it's also leaving me less prepared than I would like for the flight home.  I was still pretty groggy this evening, so it's iffy.  Please remember me in your prayers, and all of us for that matter, as we have quite a long and stressful day tomorrow.

Being knocked out of commission for a few days, plus a $25/day charge for Internet at the hotel, has put quite a dent in our blogging.  We'll catch up soon.

Dental records

We have decided if we ever need a set of Rachael's dental records we will probably just be able to check Robby's arm. Rachael has decided to take her jealousy out through biting and pinching Robby, often for no clear reason. He just takes the abuse and cries...he has yet to learn to fight back. Some day he is going to haul off and hit Rachael and boy will she be surprised.

Most of the time Rae is quite happy with Robby and they are learning to play together well. We are teaching the appropriate way to wrestle on the bed. They will tumble over each other and laugh and giggle. Yesterday we found a small playground and they enjoyed running around the play gym together.

One interesting cultural note about the playground. We were sitting there when a small child, about 3 years old, walked up in a dress. The mother walked up, pulled up the dress and proceeded to wipe his rear end. The child then climbed up on the play gym and proceeded down the slide. Low and behold it was a little boy in a dress with no underwear on! In a country of split pants this caused no stir among the locals. I was already video tapping my kids playing so I have the whole incident on tape. Just one of the many different experiences we have had in China.

Would you like a little cheese with your whine?

This is a phrase that has become quite common in our family since the weekend. As Robby comes out of his shell more and more we are beginning to see how spoiled he must have been. He has this 'wonderful' little whine/cry he does when he doesn't get his way. He will bury his head in his hands and have at it, periodically lifting his head to see if we are watching. The slightest thing can set him off, like not getting the food he wants, being told to sit down etc. We do have some times of genuine tears, but these are brief and usually in response to a tumble or being tired.

Other than the whine, he is continuing to adjust very well. He responds to things we tell him and does a great job of staying with us on our walks. He is very curious and will point out things that he is interested in. When one of us is gone he seeks for us and is happy to see us again.

the White Swan

We are comfortably settled in at the White Swan Hotel on Shamain Island in Guangzhou even if the room is a bit crowded. This is the most famous hotel in Guangzhou and is where Richard Nixon, George Bush Sr. and Queen Elizabeth stayed when they were in town.

Shamain Island is a small Island on the Pearl River. It was developed by Europeans as a place to build their embassy's and to live. The architecture is distinctly European, and it is very quiet and enjoyable after the hustle and bustle of Urumqi. Many of the embassies have moved into the city and now the Island caters mainly to tourists and families adopting Chinese children. There are many shops and we have enjoyed seeing how much we can get for a few Yuans. The shopkeepers are all very friendly, speak English and do an amazing job at remembering the names of the Children. They will call Ganggang and Rachael by name and will hold them and play with them while we shop. Of course this only encourages us to spend more time and money in the store, but it is still nice.

Our room overlooks the Pearl River and we have a beautiful view. Robby and Rachael love looking out the window at all the barges and boats going by.

You will notice there is a lack of pictures with the last few post. Dan is not feeling well tonight and he is the picture guru. I have no idea how to do it. Hopefully he will feel better tomorrow and will be able to post pictures. If not we will add some this weekend. Well, I am off to bed. We will do more updates tomorrow.
Things are going well and we are all slowly adjusting to having new family dynamics. Thank you for your continued prayer support. We know it has made a world of difference.

Yes and No

Yes we are still alive, no we are not sitting in a Chinese jail for anything.

The last several days have been hectic and the new hotel charges outrageous rates for internet service. In Urumqi we had connecting rooms, here we do not so that makes a big difference in being on the computer as well. As you can imagine, trying to do blogging with two preschoolers running around can be rough, as can five people sharing a hotel room with a king size bed, a roll away and a crib. Dan, Robby and I have the king, Kayla the roll away and Rachael the crib (aka her special little bed) We did purchase a 24 hour time span of internet, so hopefully between now and 10:00 tomorrow we will get a lot posted. We will also continue to update and fill in the gaps after we return home on Wednesday.

The flight

edited for content and pictures...


Friday, after receiving Shagang's passport (Chinese) we flew to Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton). This is where the American Consulate is. As a Chinese citizen Shagang has to apply for a visa to immigrate to the US. We will receive his visa Tuesday and then the last of the paperwork is finished. With that visa, once we land on American soil Xin Shagang officially becomes Robert Adam Houser, an American citizen! For Robby, this will happen on the tarmac in Detroit.

As lifelong Buckeyes, Robby becoming a US citizen in Detroit is a bittersweet thing for mom and Kayla. My son/her brother will become an American citizen, but it will happen in 'that state up north'! :) Oh well, at least he has a scarlet and gray blanket waiting for him on his bed at home.

Robby did amazingly well on his first ever plane flight. We were concerned that his ears might cause him problems, but it was nothing chewing some gum couldn't help.
He loved playing with the buttons for the lights and spent a long time turning them on and off. He also enjoyed listening to the music on his headphones. This was another relief to us to know that he hears well enough to use headphones. The only times we have noticed any hearing issues is when we speak very quietly or sometimes when there is a lot of background noise.

The flight into Guangzhou was uneventful, except that it was VERY hot in Guangzhou when we landed, and we had a delay of several minutes on the shuttle bus that met us on the tarmac. It's good to be at the White Swan, and we have a spectacular view of the river from our hotel room.

Muslim Dinner

Shagang actually ate a pretty big dinner last night, when we ate at a Muslim restaurant. Now, when you hear "Muslim restaurant", what do you think of? We were expecting a restaurant with Middle-Eastern dishes, of a Turkistan theme. Nope, it was hard-core Chinese, with a few local dishes, and following Halal. If you can read the menu there, it included whole roasted goat, spiced tripe, boiled cow head with abalone, horse intestines in sauce, lamb ovary stuffed dumplings, boiled camel foot, sheep embryo in blood sauce, and so on (not making any of that up!).
Some of it was freakin' intimidating. Some of it was also definitely against the Qur'an, such as the menu items comprised of blood or gelatin, and they served alcohol. Come to think of it, the restaurant was really "Muslim decor" Chinese.

Look, we've already told you we're adventuresome, and have already eaten fish head, fried carp, and several "unknown" things, but sheep embryo? Boo yao! Fortunately, after 6 pages of menu items that reeled our senses and churned Kayla's still sensitive tummy, we did come across a few pages with palatable dishes.

We had lamb dumpling (Jiaozi) both steamed and sautéed, that were fabulously good, and mutton skewers that were peppery but awesome -- Ganggang ate 3. He also really chowed down on the fried rice, and lamb clay pot. Rachael really liked the sesame beef - more on that in a minute.



Our waitress also exhibited a common trait we've seen in hotels -- speaks English very well, but doesn't really understand it when spoken. After 3 attempts to get cold milk for the children, we got hot salted milk with tea for the adults, and then hot (delicious) milk for the kids. Kayla nearly got beer.

When you look at the picture of the sesame beef, you'll notice how it looks much like you'd expect, but what's hard to see in the photo is that the pieces are thin. I mean, really thin. In fact, so thin, it would have to be Carl Budding Beef, and there didn't appear to be any red meat in them, and they were crunchy. They were really delicious, and we all liked them, but knew it must not be from a part of the cow that you typically see in the Kroger meat aisle.

When we tried to ask our waitress about the beef, and used various signs and charades, and finally got the answer "beef-like meat". Um, except it wasn't like beef, not even Budding Beef, which is scarcely beef at all. It was the most un-beef-like meat ever. My best guess? Horse intestine. Becca thinks it's beef intestines or ear. So, we're not sure, but it was very good, and I'd order everything we had again.

The highlight of the evening was a communication breakthrough, when I asked Shagang if he "had to go potty" and used the ASL sign for using the bathroom. He nodded his head, we walked hand-in-hand to the bathroom in the hotel lobby, he insisted on using the same stall we'd used twice before, and promptly did the deed. He got hearty praise from Becca and I, and we re-told the story to Kayla so Ganggang could tell what we were saying. Kayla rolled her eyes, but played along as jie-jie.

Kids being kids

We can't see our blog from Beijing or Urumqi due to censorship of Blogger, so can only publish, and can't see the resulting post.

So, we're taking a risk with this posting... something we usually don't like to do, because we like publishing a high-quality blog. However, we wanted to make this available, even if the gamble doesn't pay off, and it looks like junk on our blog.

Here's our YouTube video of Rachael and Xin Shagang playing and jumping on the bed...

Necessity the Mother of Lunch Today

Stuck in the hotel with 3 napping kids and rumbling tummies, we eyed the room service menu, and decided to make do with what we had around the hotel room.

Actually, we had a nice lunch, as you can see. Becca cut up a peach, nectarine, apple and an orange, into a quart zip-lock bag and I tossed in pistachios. With some leftover Uyghur flat bread, lychee fruit, Man Ha Dun, and a Chinese half-biscuit, half-cookie, we had a pretty good lunch.

Bizarre Bazaar

This morning we went to a famous local bazaar that's filled with vendors hawking mostly dried fruit and nuts of every description, and lots of dry goods -- daggers, scimitars, furs, cloisonnes, Russian and Cashmere trinkets, handmade silk and wool (Persian-style) rugs, silk and wool clothing, Persian pointy shoes and Genie-in-a-lamp style lamps, Urghur drums, Chinese cymbals, Kazakhstan tars (sic) and zithers, lighters of every description, jade carvings, bone carvings, and more. 

As you can see from the picture of the glass urn, Chinese medicine booths were also selling dried caterpillars you could grind up to make tea, along with other things that were less identifiable.



The bazaar was centered in a 6-story store very much the size of a 1970s era JC Penney's, but taller, with escalators between floors, but the bazaar had spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood.

Unfortunately, as we pulled into the bazaar, our tour guide informed us that the knife restrictions on carry-on bags also apply to checked baggage when flying out of Urumqi, so any knives we bought would be seized at the airport. Bummer!  Since the region is famous for it's knives, we'd been planning for 6 months to buy all our nephews real Xinjiang Urghur daggers and scimitars for Christmas presents.  The best alternative we could find is China Mail (notorious for losing packages and delivering months later) who would charge $26-$50 a package to mail home.  Sorry guys, not gonna happen.

We shopped for about 30 minutes when Kayla got very nauseous, weak and pale.  We sat for quite awhile by a fur trader and kept fanning Kayla while putting cold water on the back of her neck.  After 60 minutes, Becca bought two small rugs and we left for the hotel.  With a little bit of ice cream, orange juice and air conditioning, Kayla somewhat recovered, and is now crashed for a power nap, as are Robby and Rachael.



I was sorely tempted to buy a Russian fox hat, like you see soldiers wearing in the movies, but they were asking $60, so I couldn't justify it.  If you'll look closely at the picture of the fur cummerbund they were selling there, you'll notice the German Shepard colorings.  Yup, dog furs were mixed along with the fox, ermine, sheep and goat, and Fido fur wasn't very appealing.  I'm guessing that, along with many counterfeit brands present in some of the dry goods, there were pelts of endangered species as well -- I think I saw a real snow leopard pelt, and I know they're endangered.  Not good on many levels.

On the plus side, we did find a very cute Urgur hat for Shagang that he liked a lot, and was happy to wear around.

Cool phrase

I got to say something this morning for the first time that my father always said, in various formats -- "OK, Houser boys and girls, let's go to breakfast..."

It's sinking in now. I have a son. How cool is that??!!??

On our adoption blog

In case you've not noticed the trend, blog postings go up pretty quickly, but it takes longer to get the associated pictures posted.

You might want to consider scrolling down periodically to see if we've added photos for the prior day or two, as we get a spare moment.

Children in China

People sometimes comment to us about the Chinese not wanting their children. I just want to clarify that this is an incorrect assumption: the Chinese people love children. There is a governmental policy limiting families to one, sometimes two children in order to help control population growth. (Agricultural families can have up to 4, and ethnic groups are not restricted.)

However, we have found that people really care about children, not just their own, but others. When Rachael is running and trips, several people come to her to make sure she is okay. They will ask questions about Rachael and now Robby and are very pleased that they have found a home. Rachael was crying in the pearl market the other day due to the fact that she had just woken up. The clerks gave her a little red bag to have and several were trying to comfort her, one even brought her an ice cream bar.

One other side story about children in stores. We toured the Provincial museum yesterday and stopped in the museum gift shop. The clerks had a watermelon sitting on the counter and were cutting it and eating it. They saw our kids (Rachael and Robby) and offered them good sized pieces. Remember, this is a two and a four year old walking around a museum gift shop with Persian rugs, silks and handmade leather goods, eating watermelon -- Not exactly a neat fruit. [of course, no pictures of this, since pictures were forbidden in the museum]

More about the museum later. I am heading for bed now.

Eating in Urumqi

Buns and fruit are becoming a regular routine for us here in Urumqi. In Beijing we found that the restaurants often had English words, or had pictures of their food on display, thus allowing us to point to what we wanted. In Urumqi, you see very little English, they just don't get the tourists here. It is interesting to note that almost all signs are in Mandarin, Arabic and sometimes a third language (don't know what it is). You know you are in a foreign country when the signs are bilingual or trilingual and you still can't understand them.

Anyway, when we don't have a guide with us, which is at least one meal a day, we have to make do. While we are brave in what we will try, there's a vast difference between intentionally ordering snake, ox gonads, or cricket salad, and pointing to a line of Arabic or simplified Chinese on a menu and getting goodness-knows-what.

Breakfast is a buffet at the hotel, so that is easy to do. They have some of the traditional 'Western' breakfast foods: breads, cereal, eggs, bacon etc. There are also several decidedly non traditional breakfast foods: steamed buns, noodles, cucumber juice, stir-fried vegies and pasta with Italian sauce. Kayla says she doesn't care if she is eating spaghetti for breakfast, it is familiar food and it tastes good!

Tonight we took a walk and found a really interesting market area with lots of food vendors, and a fruit and meat market. We bought peaches, lychee fruit, flat bread, cakes, tiny puff pastries (think Schmidt's mini cream puff with apricot filling), roasted pistachios and drinks. Some, ok all, of the hanging meat was too intimidating for us to venture buying meat-on-a-stick. However, Kayla's reaction to the piles of pig tails, pig ears, livers, tripe, tongue and the like was amusing to us, and to the locals! Kayla and Dan agreed that they didn't want to think about what was squishing under their flip-flops in the dark interior of the fruit and meat market.

We weren't able to find a bench to sit on, so we sat on the curb. Culturally that was not all that strange a thing to do and we didn't meet with any disapproval from the locals. All the food was great...they have some wonderful bakers here. The cake we bought was some kind of spice cake, like gingerbread, but subtly spiced. We couldn't figure out what spice it was, but it was good.

It was funny seeing GangGang show a preference for some of his foods, and work with us to communicate what he wanted to eat next from the smörgåsbord. Watermelon was a big hit, until he discovered pistachios. He was eating them as quickly as Dan could shell them, until we figured out he could shell them on his own. We finally had to cut him off after about 50 pistachios.

Communication

Obviously communicating with Robby is not easy...we use a lot of gestures and pointing. We learned some very basic American Sign Language before we left. This morning I asked/signed Robby if he was hungry, he just stood there. I then asked/signed if he was thirsty, he shook his head yes! I gave him water and he drank it.

He then took the bottle cap and hid it in his fist. He put both hands behind his back and switched the cap. He held out his empty fist for me to see if it had the bottle cap. He did this several times then showed me the cap with a big grin.

He also totally dressed himself this morning instead of standing there limp while I dressed him. A big improvement as we see him adjusting to us more each day. Off to a breakfast of pasta.

Heavenly Lake

Heavenly Lake is a two hour drive outside of Urumqi and is said to be one of the most beautiful lakes in China. After seeing it today, I would have to say that this statement may very well be true. It was gorgeous!

The lake is surrounded by mountains which are dotted with pagodas and sheep (and satellite dishes). The drive from Urumqi was through a countryside that reminded me a lot of the American South-West, with camels added. As we began to climb the mountains, the road ran along side a beautiful fast flowing stream. The stream was doted with Urts, the round homes of the native Uygur (pronounced "wigger") people, the largest of the 42 minority groups in Xinjiang.

One of the touristy things to do was to get your picture taken with a traditional Uygur outfit one. Kayla, of course, was eager to have this done, although she is not very happy with the resulting pictures. They also had a stage where they were doing traditional Uygur folk dancing.

After enjoying the lake, we went to a small restaurant and had wonderful flat bread, mutton on a stick and Kzakistan tea. The tea had a generous amount of milk with a pinch of salt and subtle spices. It was very good. By the open fire where the meat was being cooked, the carcass of the sheep was hanging, waiting for more meat to be cut.

The mountain weather was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of Beijing. Overall the weather in Urumqi is drier and slightly cooler, but in the mountains it was very pleasant. The breeze was cool and the mountain air was clean.

Note: Several pics are in super-high quality, click on them to load.