The Olson Zoo Weblog

Well, we have made it back home to Minnesota! We arrived around 1:00 pm on Wednesday, and Len & Mary Lou (Rachel’s parents) picked us up. Joel & Becky Sutton (our pastor and his wife) and their two kids also met us at the airport. (Hope Sutton, their daughter, is also an adopted Chinese kid.)

We tried to stay up as long as possible to get back on a normal schedule, but I could only make it until about 4:00 pm. I woke up once at 9:30 pm when Rachel and Laura went to sleep, but then I slept until 5:30 am. It’s about 4:00 pm right now, and I’m not too tired, so I think I’m doing pretty well.

It is great to be back in our own house again. I especially am appreciating the soft mattress on our bed. We also enjoyed eating Chipotle, one restaurant that hasn’t made it over to China (yet, anyway).

Helen is adjusting to her new home. She met our dog Martha, and they seem to be ok with each other.

The weather here in Minnesota is hot, but after southern China it really doesn’t feel so bad to us. That’s one bright side to the extremely hot weather we endured over there!

Here are a couple pictures from our journey home:

On Monday we took it relatively easy and did not venture out much. We did some shopping and Laura did some more swimming in the pool. We took pictures with the two other Children’s Home families in the White Swan Hotel lobby. Here’s a picture from that event:

We also did some shopping on Monday. Here’s a picture of Helen with “Helen’s Shop” in the background; this is one of many shops in the area that cater to adoptive families.

Today (Tuesday) we had our oath-taking ceremony at the U.S. consulate. With that done, we now have Helen’s immigration visa, and when we get back through U.S. immigration in Minnesota, Helen will be a U.S. citizen!

We are going to bed early tonight and getting up extra early in the morning (4:30 am). We will leave the hotel before 6:00 am for our 8:20 am flight from Guangzhou to Tokyo (a 4 1/2 hour flight). After a short layover there, we will have our 11-hour flight back to Minneapolis, where we’ll arrive at 12:40 pm the same day (due to losing a day crossing the international date line).

We are really excited to be coming home! It is going to be wonderful to get back into a more regular routine…no more living out of a suitcase, and no more sharing a single bedroom/living room/dining room/office/den! We’re also excited to have Helen meet her other grandparents and her aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends back home.

On Sunday we were treated to a tour of the city from TieJun (TJ) and Tao, friends who live here. Tao is the sister of Hai, one of the Chinese post-doctoral students my parents hosted in Minnesota. TJ and Tao also have a 5-year old son, Harry, who got along well with Laura. They took us to Yuexiu Park, which is the largest park inside the GZ city limits. It boasts the Sculpture of the Five Rams…according to one source:

The Sculpture of the Five Rams is often thought of as the symbol of Guangzhou. It was placed in the park in 1959 and depicts the Chinese legend of how creatures from Heaven rode into the city of Guangzhou riding rams and carrying rice. The story is interpreted to mean that Guangzhou will never suffer from famine.

They also treated us to a delicious and elaborate meal at a restaurant near the park. Later that afternoon, we were honored to visit their apartment home in eastern Guangzhou, where we rested from the heat and had some nice refreshments. We were also honored to meet Tao’s mother and TJ’s mother and father.

We sincerely thank Tao & TJ for taking the time to show us around their beautiful city. Following are a few pictures from our day; for more pictures visit the photo album.

Wow! We have had Helen for one week now. In some respects it feels like it has been longer. It has been wonderful to see Helen’s progression of attachment to us and to see some of the real her. She is such a happy and inquisitive girl! She loves to play - especially with paper. We think it possibly is a novelty to her. She can entertain herself folding, unfolding and turning the same piece of paper for a long time. She also likes the “I drop it, you pick it up game”.

She started to learn to feed herself last night. When I would feed her Cheerios she would just open her mouth and make no attempt to try to feed herself. When I would try to have pick them up herself she would pick them up and purposely drop them. Last night she went from hiding her hand under the bib to taking the Cheerio from my fingers and putting it in her own mouth and then clapping. She then would start to fuss if you didn’t give her praise for doing it. If she could talk, one of her favorite phrases would probably be, “Do it again!” I think we have a little ham on our hands.

We are really impressed with the variety of food that Helen will eat. She will try anything and can eat a lot for her 14 lb body. Laura has been quite adventurous as well. She will try most things but has settled on rice (white or fried) being her favorite. She has done really well without her allotment of milk. Here the milk is reconstituted which she does not like. She has decided that her belly button does not call for milk anymore, it calls for food. It will call for milk in Minnesota only.

Laura is doing great as a big sister. Sure it is hard adjusting to sharing her parents especially after having four adults at her beckon call for two weeks in Hong Kong, but she is doing well. It has been wonderful to have Ross and Karin here to help take care of Laura and make our transition smoother. I have heard the other families talk about how they miss their children at home and I am so grateful that I have mine all here. The other day when I out of the bathroom, Laura and Helen were sitting in Laura’s little foam bed and Laura was singing to Helen about how God made all of the big things.

Laura loves the swimming pools here and has readily taken anyone one up who invites her. That is her favorite time to be outside. She has been a real trooper walking lots of miles around the cities with us. She is ready to have cooler weather as she said yesterday, “I don’t want to go outside, I’ll get all hotted up again!” It has been consistently in the 90’s and very humid. I think that we also look forward to temperatures in the 80’s with less humidity. Here we come Minnesota!

We are all very eager to get home and to establish our new routine. Even though we know that there will be a lot more things to keep us busy we miss it - especially our own beds (In China, they prefer extra firm beds) and turning the water faucet on and drinking from it!

Here is a picture of our two girls:

On Friday morning we got Helen’s Chinese passport. We then flew out from Nanchang on Friday afternoon and arrived in Guangzhou. We were met at the airport by Molly, the local Children’s Home Society representative who works with adoptive families here. She is very personable and really has the whole adoption process down pat.

We are staying at the White Swan Hotel and will be here through Wednesday. Molly will take care of most of the visits to the U.S. consulate for us and will coordinate all the paperwork, etc. We are mostly free to do what we want with our time.

On Saturday morning, we got Helen’s visa pictures taken and also had her medical exam done. After that, Molly brought us to a typical Chinese street market within walking distance of the hotel, and also to some shops to buy clothing and jewelry.

After that, we had some lunch at a dim sum restaurant. After lunch, we relaxed at the hotel and some of us went down to the pool here at the hotel. For dinner, we went to “Lucy’s”, which is a short walk from the hotel and serves American-style food.

This is a picture of one of the pedestrian streets near the White Swan Hotel, on Shamian Island:

Here’s a picture of our new family on the Pearl River waterfront:

After visiting the Star of Nanchang on Wednesday, we came back to the city and Wanda and I went to the notary office to pick up Helen’s official adoption paperwork. With that in hand, all we have left to get done in Nanchang is Helen’s Chinese passport to allow her to leave the country. We’ll get that on Friday, and then we’ll fly to Guangzhou late Friday afternoon.

While I was at the notary office, the others decided to brave going back to Walmart to do some clothes shopping. Much to their surprise, the experience was nothing like the last time. Since it was during a workday, the store was actually only about as crowded (or even less crowded) than a typical Minnesota Walmart might be. So that was a nice treat.

We had lunch at a KFC right next to the Walmart, and then we took a taxi back to the hotel. We made another trip down to the pool, and later we had dinner at the hotel buffet.

On Thursday, we took it easy and did not venture out at all during the day. We went to the pool again, of course. In the evening, we took a taxi and went to the nearest McDonald’s (per Karin’s request). After dinner we walked around a bit on the nearby streets, which were an upscale shopping district.

Tomorrow (Friday) we’ll have an easy morning as we pack to get ready to leave in the afternoon for Guangzhou.

Here’s a picture of Helen eating what may be her first french fry:

And here’s a picture of the gang strolling down a Nanchang street:

For more pictures, see our Nanchang album.

On Wednesday, our guide Wanda took us out to the Star of Nanchang, which is the tallest ferris wheel in the world at 160 meters (525 feet) tall! It is located on the west bank of the Gan River, in a newly-developed area of Nanchang.

The scale of the ferris wheel is hard to gauge as you approach it…it doesn’t necessarily seem so tall when you are some distance away. When you get up right next to it, you could begin to sense that it was really quite massive.

The cars are enclosed and air-conditioned. Each car holds up to 8 people, and there are 60 cars, so the wheel could hold 960 maximum. The ride once around takes about 30 minutes. The rotation speed is slow enough that you can easily step in and out of the car at the bottom of the wheel while it’s moving.

The day we visited, there were almost no other people there. We only saw one other car occupied. Wanda said that it was not busy because it was a work day. The price is about 50 yuan ($6 US), so I’m not sure if that is part of it, too. Also, it is not necessarily very convenient to get to. We took taxis to get there, but getting a taxi back to the city was more challenging, and we ended up all squishing into one taxi (6 adults including the driver, and 2 kids - 4 adults and one kid in the back!)

The ride itself was very nice. The views were great, although when you get up high you can really see the smog that shrouds the city (we can also see this clearly from our 15th-floor hotel room). We could see a lot of the city on the east bank of the river, the river itself with lots of ship traffic, three major bridges crossing the river, and all the new development (a lot still under construction) on the west bank.

According to Wikipedia, the Star of Nanchang will soon be surpassed by an even taller ferris wheel in Singapore, so we’re glad we got the chance to ride on this while it was still the world’s tallest.

Here are a few pictures from our ride on the Star of Nanchang:

For more pictures, see our Nanchang album.

On Tuesday, July 17th, we had a free day, so our guide, Wanda, offered to take us out to see some sights in Nanchang.

The first place we went was the Nanchang Zoo. We had a fun time and saw a lot of neat animals. Some highlights:

• Feeding the fish in a pond with hundreds of big fat koi, and having them literally jump on top of each other trying to get the food.
• Laura trying some interesting honey-based candy on a stick that was made into the shape of a peacock.
• Getting up close to a couple elephants (close enough that other people could feed them as they reached out with their trunks!)
• Seeing another panda bear (although we felt sorry for it…its cage was quite small and shabby, especially compared to the deluxe habitat the pandas in Hong Kong had).
• Seeing a couple of sleeping lions.
• Seeing the tail end (no pun intended) of an animal show where we saw a bear riding a bicycle.
• Riding the bumper cars (Jeff & Laura in one car, Ross in another, and the two Chinese lady operators in two more ramming into us repeatedly!)
• Having a lot of people stare at us. It’s a hard thing to get used to. Some of the stares didn’t seem too friendly, either, although most people we meet smile at us when they see Laura or Helen.

The Olsons at the Zoo:

Next, we went to a Chinese restaurant and had some Jiangxi-style food. Wanda helped us order some dishes. Jiangxi is known for spicier food than Cantonese style food, but Wanda said the dishes we were getting wouldn’t be too spicy. They had a bit of a kick to them, still, though, and were too much for my mom, who can’t really tolerate spicy foods at all.

After dinner, we visited the Tengwang Pavilion, a famous temple right on the banks of the Gan River. We ended up not spending too much time here. The weather was very hot and humid, and we were getting tired out. There were also a lot of aggressive beggars and peddlers near the temple who got on our nerves. So after looking around a bit, taking some pictures, and buying a few souvenirs, we took a taxi back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day relaxing in our rooms. Ross took Laura down to the pool again, which was a nice break for Rachel and me to spend more time with Helen.

Here’s a picture of all of us at the Tengwang Pavilion:

For more pictures, see our Nanchang album.

No, I’m not referring to our adoption adventure here in China…although we certainly have been having our moments (like our shopping trip to Walmart, and our daily experiences with the traffic here).

What I mean is that Survivor, the popular reality TV show, is filming its next series here in Jiangxi, at the Zhelin Reservoir, about 25 miles north of Nanchang. This morning at breakfast in the hotel restaurant we saw a bunch of westerners…lots of Australians, some Americans, and others. I talked to one of them while we were both at the buffet getting more food, and he confirmed that they are all here working on Survivor, and that they’ll be going for about three more weeks.

It will be interesting to see how much of the local culture and people they incorporate into the show.

Wow,

We went to Walmart on Sunday evening. Oh my goodness! It was more busy than shopping the day after Thanksgiving in the states. The Walmart here (there are two in Nanchang, a city of 4 million people) occupies two levels of a building. The prices are said to be just “Ok” but the attraction is that you can get everything you need in one stop. That increased the novelty of the experience for us. The escalator going up to the second level of the store was shoulder to shoulder people and inside the store there were many people. Some of the brands were recognizable but all of the directions for them are in Chinese characters.

We went there to find formula with a scoop, snacks, breakfast food, smaller diapers, and maybe another outfit. It seemed like every family with a child wanted their child to meet Laura. Her red hair and large eyes are thought to be very beautiful (of course, we already knew that). She had a hard time with so much attention. We have been told that they do not have very much tourism.

The first floor was like a grocery store but with lots of raw meat. Some I could recognize and some not. The smell was a bit overwhelming. At the checkout, people just leave their carts after they unload them so it creates more congestion than just the people themselves do.

The ride back to the hotel reminded me of riding in Beijing. There are cars, buses, motor bikes, bicycles, and pedestrians all together on the road. There aren’t very many controlled intersections. I tried to not look out of the windows because it looked like we would for sure kill someone. People don’t wear seatbelts, helmets, and often have children riding the motorbikes too. It seems like your life flashes before you every time you cross the street. You just start walking in between all of the moving cars most of the time on a crosswalk. The crosswalk doesn’t seem to make a difference because the vehicles don’t stop for you and sometimes the crosswalk leads to a hedge or a wall! Ai Ya!