Medical and shopping day

This morning was Zoe's medical check required by the Embassy for immigration purposes. She received a clean bill of health from the doctor. She weighed in at 8.8 kg (19.4 lbs) and is 72.5 cm (29 in)tall.

After lunch we went to the silk market by taxi for some souvenir shopping, only to discover that it is no longer cheap! As bargaining is the name of the game there, we managed to pay about 1/3 of the asking price each time, but still felt like we were being hosed with every purchase. Stuff is not as cheap as it was 7 years ago, good thing we got lots of souvenirs then as we won't be spending that much this time.

After we got back from shopping we had to try on the purchases for some pictures!

Tomorrow is the Great Wall and jade factory.

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Sunday Snow Day two more pics

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Sunday Snow Day!

This morning we woke up to quite a bit of snow/slush. Of course, we had to walk through it to get to the photo shop where Zoe's visa photo was to be taken.The slush continued for about 2 blocks until we encountered the sidewalk cleaning crew, pictured above in orange. A little further on we came upon a second and third crew, pictured in green, these guys were the army! Big snowstorm in Beijing and they call in the army, wonder if they got the idea from Toronto??Our guide for this leg of the trip, Cissy, told us that the photo place we were at hires their employees for life. They can never be fired, ever. Not only that, the employees children are also guaranteed jobs at the photo place if they wish!Tomorrow we have the medical appointment required by the embassy, Tuesday is our Great Wall trip. The weather is supposed to improve for the remainder of the week, still cold, but at least dry and not as windy. We'll see if the forecasters here are any better than the ones back home.Sent from my ASUS Pad

More Pics

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Chongqing Old Town

A couple pics from the Chongqing old town - before we got Zoe.

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Made it to Beijing

We are now in Beijing, arrived at the hotel around 3:30 this afternoon. The hotel is very nice, not surprisingly to those who know Amelia well, we have already tried out the pool! It's on the 9th floor, and supposedly has a very nice view, but it was dark by the time we got up there.

The weather is quite a bit different here, most days in Nanchang were around 20 C, it was only 11 C and pouring rain when we landed, apparently they had light snow here this morning. We're already thankful for the warm clothes we packed.

I will be using internet in the lobby at this hotel as the Wifi is free down here, but we have to pay to use it in the rooms, and it's quite expensive. So anyone who we've been e-mailing with keep in mid I won't be answering as frequently.

Zoe is doing well, she still has a bit of a runny nose. We didn't think it possible, but we just may have an even spicier girl on our hands than the one we already have. When Zoe decides she isn't happy with something, she can freak out like crazy! Made for quite an interesting flight, and we're hoping this wasn't a 2 hour preview of the 13 hour flight we have in our future!

She's eating and drinking pretty much anything we give her, she uses those 6 teeth of hers quite effectively. However, even if she's hungry, if she's not in the mood for something, she will not even consider eating it. Spicy!

Tomorrow we go get the pictures taken for Zoe's visa that she needs to enter Canada. Monday is the medical check required by the embassy. I'll take some time tomorrow to go through our pictures and put a few up from the last week.

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What a day!

Today was orphanage visit/meet Zoe's foster mom day.  What an incredibly stressful and emotional day.

It was about a 2 hour van ride to get to Fengcheng, through a mainly agricultural countryside.  Amelia's home city and the entire trip to it was very mountainous, Zoe's is just the opposite, quite flat, similar to SW Ontario, and is a farming area of rice and sugarcane primarily.

Most of the rice has been or is ready to be harvested now, some fields were being harvested as we went by.  After the rice has been harvested, apparently it needs to be spread out to dry, and every flat concrete surface to be found was being used for this, storefronts, sidewalks, and even the highway!

Fengcheng city, where Zoe is from, is a 'town' of 1 million people.  On the way through town we saw both the new and old town, which were definitely a huge contrast from one another.

When we got to the orphanage, Zoe's foster mom, Xun Aimei, was waiting outside, and was already at the door of the van when we emerged.  It was very emotional as she was crying when she saw Zoe, as I'm sure she realized this was the last time she would probable see her.  She had brought a bag of treats and snacks for her and was giving them to her the entire time.

We had a quite  bit of time to spend with her and ask questions, etc.  We've been able to tell over the last 3 days that she had taken very good care of Zoe for us and we can't thank her enough for that gift.

After the meeting at the orphanage, we all went out to lunch together, the families, the foster mom's and the orphanage director, then we made our goodbyes and were on our way.  Xun Aimei was genuinely heartbroken to see her go, we can tell she received lots of love from her over the last 11 months.

We were all emotionally drained by the time we returned to the hotel, but not too tired to make yet another trip to the pool with Amelia!  At the end of the day Helen brought us our notarized adoption documents, tomorrow we receive Zoe's passport, that being the last thing we need before moving on to Beijing on Saturday to begin the Canadian side of the adoption process.

Tomorrow we are also planning to go to a porcelain market to get some souvenirs from Zoe's province.  Jiangxi is known for fine pottery.