More pics of Guangzhou

Christian Church in Guangzhou!!
Ellie playing at the park
One of the many "weird" signs we have seen
Model Ellie with Baba
White swan hotel lobby

First day in Guangzhou

Children practicing their english on us!
Ellie at "Lucy's" eating french fries!!
BIG ficus trees!
Steven with Zak
Riley as a monkey


We arrived here in Guangzhou yesterday afternoon, Ellie did well on the flight, and fell asleep as we landed!! Of course! On the way home we will take care of that with some Dramamine!! Oh yes.....and we will take off from Beijing at 4PM so hopefully she will be tired anyway. I am not looking forward to that flight!! Today we met two other families for breakfast, which is a great buffet with all kinds of food. I think most families live off of the breakfast, as it has some American food also. Then we all went to church!! There is a Christian church right down the street!! They have a Chinese/English service at 11 Am!! Very interesting to say the least!! We did sing some English songs, and they had a translator....who some had trouble understanding. After church we went to Starbucks and met the Skiles family. They are adopting Zak....and sweet little boy who is 2 years old. They are very nice folks, from Indiana. We then went to Jordan's children's shop which is run by a very nice Christian man named Jordan. By the way Vickie....we gave him the gift and he was very excited to get it! He said thank you very much and greetings to you and your family!! He made a drawing of Ellie's name with the Chinese characters and meanings. We did purchase some things from his shop...some souvenirs etc. Later today we took some laundry to be done and then did some shopping. Wow it's different here!! You have to bargain with the people who are selling things!! They say....very good price for you..... Yeah right!! We played at the park, where Riley was amazing all the locals with his monkey genes on the highbar!! They were all just standing there staring at him!! Then we ate at Lucy's...which is American food....well as close as it gets in China!!! We are headed to the pool now and Riley & Ellie can't wait!! gotta go....Pictures to follow after swimming!! Love you Rorey Clark!!!

Guangzhou

We flew to Guangzhou today, it was a OK flight, about 5 hours. It was chilly when we left Urumqi, but when we landed here in GZ, it was warm and muggy!! It isn't horrible, just warm especially after being in Xinjiang where it is cool now. We came from the north-west part of China to the south-east coast area. We saw our friends the Skiles out and about with thier new son Zak. He is around 2, very cute and very tiny!! He comes from a more southern area where the people tend to be smaller. Tomorrow we will probably meet up with others from our group, it is a free day and we are going to go to church with the Skiles down the street from the White Swan. I thought Christianity was not really acceptable here, but they have a church in GZ!!
I will post some pictures tomorrow, and give you an update on our plans!! Love you Rorey!!

More pics last day in Urumqi

View from the top of red hill
These are the stairs I said no to!
Sha Mei and Baba rode the bumper boat!
bridge at red hill park

Last day in Urumqi

View from our window
Lunch of noodles with beef
"Very famous"noodle restaurant workers
Family pic at Red Hill Park
Sha Mei on top of the "red hill"
Today is Friday and we are flying out of here tomorrow morning!! It has been a very special time here where Sha Mei was born and started her life, but I am homesick....mainly Rorey sick , and ready to move on to the next part of the trip. Tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou, where we will have our American Consulate appointment, and we will get Sha Mei's visa for her passport, which will allow her to enter into the US. Today we didn't do anything in the morning, we waited for Jessie to go and retrieve Sha Mei's passport and then she helped us to get all of our paperwork and money ready for Guangzhou. After that was done we walked to Red Hill Park which is in the middle of town about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. It has a big "mountain" right in down town Urumqi!! Riley rode a carnival ride there and Rick and Sha Mei rode the little bumper boats. She is in LOVE with Baba. Then they climbed the big hill. I went part way and then waited for them to come back down. I have had enough stairs for the next 2 years!! Everyone was staring at me and doing the double take! Strange, white skinned, tall, big nosed, American

lady standing on the pathway alone. I seemed to draw a lot of attention!! When we got back Jessie took us to a small family restaurant one street behind the hotel. It was very delicious ....noodles with beef and vegetables. "Very famous" that is the catch phrase here in China!! The workers where very interested in us, Sha Mei, Riley and his blond hair, and asked Jessie all kinds of questions!! I will post some of the pics from today and also some from tonight of our view from the hotel!! Love to everyone! Especially you Rorey!!

We love you Rorey

I'm writing this post for Rorey, who is our wonderful 5 year old son who stayed home with Nana and Papa in Illinois. We love you so much and miss you alot!! Sha Mei knows you are her brother and points to your picture and calls you ge ge......big brother. She is very cute, but very strong willed! Sound familiar Rorey? One week from today we will be coming home to see you! I can't wait to give you a big hug!! Love you buddy!!

Xin Sha Mei

This post is to explain Sha Mei's name, as more than one person has asked me. The first name
is actually her last name, Xin......which all of the children in her orphanage have.... It means
"new" and comes from the first part of her provice name, Xinjiang. Her name Sha means desert.. or sand. Which is very good for this area because there is alot of desert in Xinjiang. Her
next name Mei means rose. So her full name is New Desert Rose. We think it is very pretty,
the orphanage director chose her name and we told her it was very good.

Even more pics!!

Heavenly lake with snowcapped mountains in the distance.
Very old monastery at Heavenly lake

Crazy people ride these up the mountain in summer
Houses of local minority

More pics of heavenly lake

Our guides Jessie and Jing with Sha Mei!!


This picture is for Sue Reid....there is your backpack at Heavenly lake!!

Day trip to Heavenly lake

Today we started out at 10:30 to Heavenly Lake, which is located up in the mountains near Urumqi. We drove nearly 1 1/2 hours to get there. Once you arrive at the "park" you have to take a small bus up the twisting, turning, near-death cliff mountain road. The kind that when you look over the edge from the vehicle your life flashes before you kind of mountain road?? You know what I'm saying?? I don't like to drive these in a car.....I really didn't like it in a bus!! But obviously we survived. Once you finally get to the top of the mountain then you walk up the rest of the way....about 15 minutes, to the actual lake. It is a beautiful sight with mountains on both sides of the water and also behind. There were snow covered mountains in the distancce, and they have already had snow this fall. We then took a long winding trail to see a smaller lake and the water fall and stream that come from Heavenly lake and head down the mountain. It was very beautiful. We went down, down, down stairs to get to it, so unfortuantly we had to go up, up, up stairs to get back!! WOW Ok, the great wall was worse, but this was pretty bad also!!
I'm still coughing from my slight asthma problem that only kicks in when I'm getting too much exercise. Add in the fact that we were like 6000 feet up, breathing in cool air, I couldn't breath really well while up there. Can you CIAR girls overnight me an inhaler?? Just kidding!!
Sha Mei walked most of the way, but fell asleep on the way back in the van. At the top of the mountain they have an area for the local people....can't remember starts with a K....anyway they
sing and dance on a stage there, I'll put up a picture of that also. As we headed back down
we stopped at the resaurant and had the Nang bread...."pancake bread" it was very good, they cook it in a big stone oven and stick it to the sides of the walls of the oven. Also we had some mutton soup.that was very good also.

More pics

Here are more pics from our day yesterday. We were not allowed to take pics at the museum.

Anyone who is wondering yes these are dried snakes. Also seahorses in the jar!! Apparently

they make tea out of them and then drink it. Some sort of medicine!! I'll take my western

pill popping anytime!!!

Pics from Grand Bazaar

Rick couldn't get our computer to work, so he put our pics on to the hotel computer. Hope they like them! These are of the Grand Bazaar, fruits, clothes , pomegranate juice which Riley had to try.....tart to say the least!! Riley also had to have one of the traditional hats seen in the picture. His is black and white.

New room, Bad computer!!

While we were out today at the mummy museum the hotel called and said they wanted us to move to a new room. We said why?? They said they had repairs to do on the floor we were on and it would be noisy. So after we returned today we started packing everything up and the bell boy loaded us up and moved us to a new room on the 21st floor. The only problem is that this room doesn't like our laptop so we can't put any pictures up!! I can use theirs to blog without
pictures. I know all you guys really want is the pics, so we will have our guide Jessie try to help us get it fixed tomorrow.
So today we first went to the Museum of Xinjiang History. It was a very modern beautiful building with displays of many interesting things. They have areas to show many of the local minorities including Uygers.....who actually make up about 51% of the people here. They had exhibits of ancient relics, clothing, houses, jewelry, musical instruments and more. I think about 10 minorities were represented in the displays. There are actually many many minority groups here. I think she said around 48??? here in Xinjiang province. We also saw the mummy exhibit and had a museum guide who spoke English fairly well. It was very interesting, as these mummies are not the type found in Egypt for example. The mummies here are naturally made from the dry weather, and because they were buried in sand. They were very well preserved!! They had clothes on, hair, fingernails etc. Riley liked this and Sha Mei seemed to also. When we had finished at the museum we headed to the Grand Bazaar which is a local market here in Urumqi. First thing we did was eat at a traditional Uyger restaurant. I had rice with chicken, which I shared with Sha Mei. Rick and Riley both had noodles with mutton and mutton kabobs. Sha Mei can put down the meat when she is hungry!! She was eating our meal, and Rick's mutton. Our guides asked for ours to be "not spicy" so it took a little longer for us to get our food. I forgot to mention we have a local guide today and tomorrow.....Jing. She is from here in Urumqi and is very nice and speaks very good English. You may see her in our pictures when we ever get them on here!! We also have had about 20 different types of hot tea while we have been here. Today at the Uyger restaurant we had a local tea, and I could tell it was different from the others we have tasted. I must be getting the hang of it!! After eating we went thru the bazaar and saw all kinds of nuts, fruits, dries fruits, all for sale. We did buy some raisins...Sha Mei seemed to like them very much. Xinjiang is very famous for it's grapes and melons at this
time of year. We also saw clothing, jade, carpets, furs, Chinese medicine items.....very interesting!! Many very odd things that they make tea out of and drink!!! ICK is all I can say!!
We went to the market this evening and are back in the room for the night now. Hopefully we can get some pictures up tomorrow!! Love to everyone!

Earthquake

I just heard on the news(CNN the only English channel here) that there was an earthquake in Tibet. I didn't catch when it was, but we are fine and didn't feel anything. Just didn't want anyone to worry about us! We are quite far from Tibet, even though it is right under this
province of Xinjiang. We are off to the Grand Bazaarr today and then the mummy museum.
Riley is very excited about that. I'll post pics tonight!! Love to all.

More Urumqi Pics

Oh yes did I already mention the word princess?? I wanted a girl and I got one! She is constantly wanting her picture taken and stopping traffic posing every 10 feet!! She also loves to take the camera and take pictures herself!! Did you see the great one of me??....She took that.

Also we went swimming today after we got back from our adventures. Last night she wanted to go really badly, and was laying in the floor pretending to swim because we were not responding to her wishes!! Rick called Jessie and had her tell Sha Mei that we would go swimmimg today.

Jessie told us this morning that she also told Sha Mei that she should go to sleep with her new Mama and Baba and should not cry. Sha Mei responded with ...yes I know that. She is something else, just like her two brothers!! Of course we wouldn't know what to do if we had a quiet, shy, obedient child!!! LOL

Hey Skiles' if you read this leave me a comment with your blog name. I can't find it. I know the password....it's easy. Hope all is well with the three of you.