Around Wuhan

A vision of cuteness

Outside the museum

Out for lunch

Lunch w/our guide

Brushing teeth w/Mama

We visited the Hubei Provincial museum yesterday. The exhibit we saw was very interesting- it was a fairly recent excavation of a tomb found in Hubei of a Marquis. There were many similarities between the way the dead were buried in Ancient China compared to Egypt. Many artifacts for use in the 'after life' according to the customs of the day.

It's been very cold here & in fact yesterday it snowed which is not very common for Hubei Province. That has put a little hindrance in what we have been able to do (outside sights). The other thing that is interesting is that in areas south of the Yangtze River, homes & buildings are not provided government provided heat. It was a cold visit to the museum as parts were not heated. Part of the crew also went to the Stone & Wood museum as there is a rare stone (Chrysanthemum Stone) found here in Hubei & we wanted to buy a memento for our son that is unique to Hubei.

Yang Yang is adapting pretty well & we see more or his personality come out a little each day. He is quite a little jokester- last night he was hiding under one of the chairs in our room & peaking his head out saying 'meow, meow.' He gets a little smirk on his face when he is being mischievous. Maddy is slowly warming up to her brother but it will take time to get used to sharing our attention. We are so thankful for Linda (Matt's mom) being w/us as she has been a huge blessing w/her help.

Officially part of the family

We completed the official paperwork to make our son legally part of our family. We headed back to the Civil Affairs Office to complete this part of the journey in the morning. The orphanage staff came again today to be part of the formalities, they were excited to see their little Yang Yang again (and quickly gave his clothes an inspection to make sure he had enough layers on: ).

There was a bit of sad news today- one of the families decided not to go through with their adoption. The little 5-6 year old girl was returned to the orphanage director and was at the civil affairs office when we arrived. We do not know the full details only that she was more than the family felt able to handle. Please pray that this little one is able to find a suitable family.

After naptime today we went to Carrefour to pick up a few supplies. We decided to have dinner at KFC since it was impossible to get a taxi back during rush hour. KFC has a little slide that Zeke noticed right away. He & Maddy tried it out after dinner and had fun playing there for a while. Zeke is doing really well, our biggest challenge is communicating with him. We had our guide write a little cheat sheet with a few key phrases to help us remember certain words.

Zeke's Daddy:

Yang Yang (Zeke) is such a sweet little boy. He is so curious and it is such a treat to watch him discover new things in his ever expanding little world. He is quite affectionate and has really taken to his mama already, but still has plenty of love to share with his baba. We had fun just before naptime time wrestling and tickling I love hearing him laugh and seeing him smile or seeing his expression when he tries something new to eat like this mornings toast with jam or an M&M (he gets wide eyed and his eyebrows go up) he is really something!!!

I just can't get over how sweet his disposition is, although when he gets tired he gets a bit mischievous and a little naughty. We have definitely been blessed once again. He's asleep right now, but I am excited thinking about the things we will do and share with him tomorrow!

Maddy seems to like her little brother as well, but is showing signs that she may not be entirely ready to share mom and daddy. I'm hoping that over the next few days she will warm up to the concept that mommy and daddy are just as enamoured with her as before we just need to share our time with her new brother.

Introducing our son

We will put pictures first today since we know that's what you really want to see:

Family of three

Yang Yang with a couple of the nannies



Playing with Jie Jie


Family of Four

Today, at a few minutes after 10 we met our son at the Hubei Civil Affairs Office in Wuhan. He is so much more precious in person, his pictures just didn't do him justice. The whole affair was very low key compared to Maddy's metcha day that is was almost surreal. We got there before he did & our guide had us filling out paperwork while the orphanage crew quietly came in with our little Yang Yang. He was dressed in a cute little brown bomber jacket and navy pants. He was accompanied by 2 nannies and the director, you can tell that he has been very loved by the staff.

He was sent off with some wonderful gifts which was quite a surprise. Daye Orphanage gave us a bag with some of his favorite snacks, the bear & photo book of us that we sent to him for his birthday and the best of all- a scrapbook with pictures of him from Day 1 at the orphanage & every couple of months through the time he left.


We are so blessed to see his personality already starting to come out. He is definitely going to give his sister a run for her money. Tomorrow we will head back to the Civil Affairs Office to make everything final.

From Zeke's (YangYang) BaBa:

What a day...

We arrived at the civil affairs office ahead of the Da Ye contingent, as we waited we began filling out the required paperwork for the province. With our attention on the paperwork our son arrived. In an instant, all the anxiousness and feelings of being totally unprepared completely faded away as were were faced to face with our little boy. Everything happened so quickly that there was no flood of emotions erupting in tears save for the Orphanage Director who I caught wiping the moisture from his eyes.

We spent the next 20-30 minutes watching Maddy and Yang Yang play together in the little play area in the civil affairs office. Yang Yang seemed mesmerized by all the new sights during our trip back to the Hotel.

During what was supposed to be naptime Yang Yang and his new mommy enjoyed some bonding time as they played little games through the bars on the crib. As Tanya stated earlier in this post, the pictures and description din not do our little boy justice. He is such a charming and warm little boy. His personality has begun to blossom the more time we spend with him, and we are truly blessed!

Settling in @Wuhan

This morning we took the shuttle from our hotel to the Central Airport Express train station. We loved being able to walk a few steps from the shuttle drop off to an airline check-in station where we could drop off our checked bags & get our boarding passes. After a super fast train ride to the HK airport via the express train, we arrived in plenty of time for our flight to Wuhan. It was nice to see the impressive HK airport since we were too tired to really appreciate it when we arrived. They have charging stations & reclining chairs for weary travelers.

We arrived a few hours ago in Wuhan. There was a little bit of a scare when Linda was asked to step aside at immigration & have a seat while they took her passport for a look in a back room. After a few minutes they came back and let her go through. We have been getting settled into our rooms. It was quite a heart stopper to walk into our room & see the crib set-up all ready for Zeke. The hotel also put a little potty & baby bath tub in our bathroom. We are going to have a low key night & will go out to explore a little tomorrow. Our guide seems very nice & she gave us a little tour from the airport on the various local sites.

Our appointment to meet Zeke is 10 am Monday so we are down to just hours now. Our guide did inform us that his orphanage nannies have gone on & on about what a handsome & smart boy our son is and how much they will miss him. Also, it sounds like the custom in Hubei is to send the kids with a few things (snacks, formula & a photo album of his early months!) We can hardly wait for the big moment!

Final Day: up & down Hong Kong

For our final day in HK, we did a lot of walking & venturing into the Central area. We started our day with an adventure to the zoo- we started out on the shuttle from our hotel bound for Central Station so we could take the metro to the zoo. Our overly helpful friends on the bus insisted that we get off a stop earlier from the shuttle as it was closer to the zoo. We attempted a bus from that local station only to find out we took it the wrong direction (basically paying about .50 per block). We eventually took a taxi to get us to the zoo.

We next hit the central HK escalator that is quite a site to behold. This runs approx 2600 feet from top to bottom and serves as a means for some to commute to work daily. From 6-10 am it runs downhill into the Central District and for the remainder of the day it switches direction. There is quite a little community of shops & restaurants that have built up around it.

Our final stop of the daytime was Central Plaza, one of the tall buildings in HK. We went up to the observation deck & saw some amazing 360 views of the city. This building is unique in that there is a church located on the 76th floor. We attempted a visit there only to find out that it's only open on Sundays.

We headed back to the escalator for dinner at Fat Angelo's which had amazingly good Italian food. As I write this we are in the processing of getting our luggage jostled around so we can meet the weight standards for tomorrow's flight to Wuhan. We are close & are hoping for a pound or so mercy on our bags w/the airline. We are signing off from Hong Kong after an amazing 4 day adventure, we will attempt to use our VPN to get thru the Great Firewall for posts once in Wuhan.

Hong Kong Day 3 - Stanley

Our third day on Hong Kong took us outside of the city to the Repulse Bay / Stanley area. We extended our Big Bus ticket for another day & had a great ride out along the cost with some spectacular views of the South China Sea. We got off at Stanley that has a market & lots of places to eat along the beach.

Matt helped the locals clean up while we waited for the bus, they got a real kick out of this

The Big Bus

We did a little more shopping than we had intended to do but found some great bargains. The market at Stanley maybe isn't the best prices compared to the inner city market but the atmosphere is low key & a great place to look without harassment.

We have one full day left before we head to Wuhan. Only 3 more days until we meet Zeke!

Hong Kong Day 2

We has quite a marathon day for our 2nd full day in Hong Kong. We purchased a 'Big Bus' ticket which is passage via a double decker open top bus. It stops at various destinations throughout HK & allows you to jump on & off as you wish. It turned out to a gorgeous clear day so our first stop was Victoria Peak. This is the highest point in the city that gives you amazing views of HK & beyond.

Our ticket alo included another ferry ride so weventured back over to the Kowloon side to ride the route over there. We decided to stay for dinner so we could see the buildings light up & catch some of the nightly laser light show. Chritmas is an amazing time of year to be here as the high rises are especially decked out for the season.



Maddy has been absolutely wonderful. Beside some normal 3 3/4 year old behavior, she has really a great little traveler. We have gotten lots of use out of the stroller & are so glad we brought it.

Our sleepy little trooper