The White Swan

Ok, not everyone will appreciate this but those of you who have been on this journey or are waiting for this journey you know what I felt when our van pulled into the long driveway that led to the White Swan Hotel. This time the feeling was just as strong as last time - a sense of having arrived, of the journey finally near it's end. To say this part of the journey is much anticipated is an understatement. This is the last stop before home. The last dropping of paperwork. The last business in China which is now with the American consulate here in Guangzhou. On Tuesday our new guide will take the paperwork accumulated in China, along with our daughter's Chinese passport, to the consulate for them to give her a visa and the infamous "brown envelope" which will be passed to the immigration official in Newark which will make her an American citizen.

So, for Americans adopting in China it is where we all end: Shamian Island in Guangzhou. And for most we stay at the White Swan. (For HAS families waiting, I don't know why ANYONE would ever choose the Victory.) Upon entering the hotel one sees families just like us - though not as many this time (sign of the slowdown?). We share small talk in the elevator, swap stories at Lucy's, in the playroom or over breakfast, all the while knowing that to get here we have gone through various versions of the same journey each slightly different, some longer than others, but each one as emotionally draining. 

And what way to end the journey in this fantastic hotel. It just doesn't compare. Remember? The sound of the waterfall, the air freshener they use that hits you once you get off the elevator on your floor (which smells quite opposite to the Ramada!). At this time of year the jackets peel off on arrival and first thing we walked to Lucy's unburdened by gloves, coats, wind where we ate from the mixed menu. We strolled to the friendship store and Jordan's and Michaels. Coming back to you now? And as it got dark we watched the lights come on around the Pearl River which from our room now looks aglow with neon and returned to our beds turned down and that little jar w/ chocolates by our bed.

For those of you who have not been here: it's just a really nice hotel with awesome food and incredible service and a darn good way to end what is a very long and tiresome journey.

Photos tomorrow and Breeda will post some as well. 

Goodbye Nanjing

Another wake up to gray film filtering the sun into a mutant moon. Though it's morning, the sky is dusk and the bland white disk that should be yellow and glaring floats like a Neco wafer: benign and insignificant. What it must be like to not see the sun in all its glory. For it to be so irrelevant. Here it sits like a forgotten cousin but the effect is malignant and must damage more than just the earth but the psyche as well.

The answer is to wear masks and mop the grit from doorways each morning. I was so mistaken those first days when I saw the sky. At breakfast I chatted with a man from Arizona who just learned he has to stay here through the holidays. He told me I'm lucky it's not summer. That he went three months and saw the sun twice between the rain and the pollution.

Our last day in Jiangsu Province.

The girls and I strolled again to the Hunan Road for some gifts. We stopped in Starbucks and sang Christmas songs to each other lounging on those comfy blue chairs. Lila knows Jingle Bells. I pause and think of the kids who did not leave with Lila, still in Wuxi singing Jingle Bells in that classroom with the fish art on the bulletin board.

We've now come in and out of the Ramada so many times that Lila knows when to press up or down; 1st floor or 26th floor. She knows the breakfast buffet by heart. Wait till she sees the White Swan's offering!

Four women and six children shared two cabs and trekked to Ming Tomb this afternoon which offered not only history but wide open space for our children to run freely. Between the paths, steps up and down and driveways the kids had a proper workout. We posed in front of the huge rock-carved animals and hopped another two cabs back to meet our guide for receipt of our daughter's passport that allows us to leave the province tomorrow morning. With the passing of that passport our business with Jiangsu Province has officially ended.

Our guide, Sandra, took us for a celebratory meal. Breeda was much more adventurous than me. Lila kept turning the lazy-Susan and taking from every option until there was no room left on any of her plates!

The girls are just beginning to doze. It is morning in the U.S. Night here. Tomorrow we say goodbye to Nanjing, goodbye Wuxi, goodbye Jiangsu, our daughter's birthplace which will forever connect us to here.

Aidan & Clara, Look Who Eats Breakfast with Chopsticks Now

Limbo Day

Today was the day we do nothing as we wait for the province to give us our daughter's Chinese passport. I woke to the China of two years ago. It began with that familiar gray haze blocking the sun which I thought at first was fog. But fog isn't so illusive or hovering. Fog goes away. It drifts, has movement. This was no fog. It didn't lift. Pollution, China's shame - one of them - lingers and taunts this country's progress - a shadow forcing conscience for the damage it's reeking on our planet. A trip to the city wall confirmed the vapor veil would continue to hinder our view for the day. 

This morning the girls and I walked through the neighborhood behind the hotel. I'll save the photos for Breeda's blog. She had her first view of an authentic local neighborhood and street market. 

Later our guide took us to a brocade silk museum where we saw looms 20 feet long by 10 foot high shared by two loomers - one at the top, another the bottom. A complex contraption that involved one dictating the intricate pattern from a series of ropes at the top to the other pulling the silk at the bottom. A craft passed generation to generation for thousands of years reeks, like everything else from ancient China, of intensive labor.

Another stroll to the other side of the Hunan Road and at last a Starbucks where I bought my first decent cup of English Breakfast tea. Tomorrow afternoon we get Lila's passport, share a celebratory meal with our guide and travel group - all of us now sans husbands who have returned or, like mine, are still in route, home - and finally head to Guangzhou on Saturday. White Swan here we come. 

Hunan Road at Night

Wuxi Social Welfare Institute

Yesterday we boarded a small bus for the three hour ride to Wuxi to see what was our daughter's home. The ride from Nanjing to Wuxi brought us through some older suburbs and some farm land. There were pockets of factories and manufacturing along the way. Often manufacturing facilities - where all those goods that we all buy from toys, to clothing, to, well, everything - are visible by the blue roof tops. 

We left one wealthy city and journeyed to another. As we drove into Wuxi the air thickened and had that familiar gray hue we saw everywhere we went two years ago. There is some industry in Wuxi which explains the change. And construction projects abounded. Cranes swung around future rows of apartment complexes. 

The Institute was, well, what it is. As institutes go it's one of the nicer ones. They make a great effort for the children and clearly have goals in the classrooms. The classrooms looked very much like any in the U.S. The other day we were given a binder of Lila's school work containing all the familiar projects, coloring, lettering, of any pre-schooler. 

But, still, it's no home and Lila was conflicted about going back. They were very generous to us and the other two families and gave us a meal which included dishes with eyes in tact, etc. The gesture was meaningful and the representative answered all of our questions. I ate a lot of rice :)

On the way home we detoured through downtown Wuxi to locate the finding spot of the child of one of the other families. Downtown Wuxi, like Nanjing, could have been Manhattan. This part of China is clearly booming. Though our guide did say that there have been recent layoffs and a dip in manufacturing because of the US economy. 

When we got back we walked back to another part of the Hunan Road with one of the families. It lights up at night so there is the neon China again. It's a great place for us to stroll with lots of restaurants. The kids wanted pizza so we ate in Pizza Hut. 

Today is sightseeing day. Sandra, our sweet guide, will bring us to a few sights in Nanjing. 

Steven left at 5:30 this morning. One more week for us.

China Time

What do you do when your body clock blinks you awake at an insanely early hour and everyone else in the room is doing this?

You finish ordering your Christmas shopping on amazon. You read the NY Times online...which I CAN get this time! You check email because the web traffic is so much faster now in the hotel (b/c everyone else is asleep!).

And you wait for the breakfast buffet to open. The Ramada's breakfast buffet has nothing on the White Swan (shout out to all of you who know!). You've never had a breakfast buffet until you've eaten breakfast in the White Swan. But it suffices just fine to fill us up until mid day. I brought my tea bags with me and last night our new buddy Alex (English speaking Ramada employee) hooked me up with some to go cups. I just put the electric kettle on and realized the milk was gone. AHHH! I was SO dying for it.

To any HAS families out there who stayed at the Ramada - food suggestions welcome! Where is that German restaurant you all talked about?