1. Everyone seems to love that we have adopted one of their children! People smile at us, play with us, help us and even offer treats when Xuan Song screams through most of an airplane flight!
We call him the Prince.
2. The food. Oh my. I could blog about all the yummy ginger, spicy chicken, fantastic noodles and green beans that we all love to stuff ourselves with morning, noon and night!
He is destined to have a long life!
He doesn’t eat with chopsticks yet. Local guides told me sometimes it takes until kids are 4-5 before they master them.
3. The Police! Xuan Song was found by 2 policeman when he was 11 days old. 1 of the men, Zhao Xuanzhi, was the captain of the SWAT team in Zhuzhou City. He has kept in contact with XS through his whole life, including the 2 surgeries provided through govt. grants! He visited XS even after he got married and had a family of his own. And he made sure to visit him Sunday, the day before we received him. He has also eagerly requested we send him information about how he grows up.
We are also grateful for a traffic cop who stopped us from crossing a very busy street. It didn’t seem any more dangerous than other streets we had played “Frogger” to cross but we listened to him. He pointed out the much safer underground tunnel.
4. The food. Worth saying once more. The other night I ate some pot stickers that were truly to die for. Unconsciously, I “hmm-mm”-ed and “yum”-ed my way through 2 of them before it was so obnoxious, even my patient, undisturbed husband was annoyed!
5. The language. We have tried to master the words for car, good job, pee pee, poo, I love you, quiet, are you still hungry/thirsy and family terms. It has been fun and he seems to understand us. Our American friends here (6 other families are going through adoption with us) seem to think we sound good at least!
6. Lastly, the small hospitality items in the hotel room. Slippers, robes, umbrellas (even though one of them did a Mary Poppins flip out for me in a deluge in Beijing until a bellman tried to help. He had to get his boss to teach us both how to open it, carefully. We laughed so hard at each other!) and electric tea pots. It has truly made our stay here quite comfortable.
We only have 3 days left in Guangzhou. Then we take a car to Hong Kong and fly home! I am going to miss not cooking, these fuzzy slippers, the pool on the roof and having Brian get to take 1-1 time with his number 3 kid. We will miss the camaraderie of the other families who understand exactly what we are going through and the king sized beds!
But are so grateful for the family and friends that will help us as we try to start our normal life after this crazy fun unique vacation in the Far East.
Walking on a university site from the late 900’s, AD.
Reading books with ba-ba, taking baths and making each other laugh: epic.