Breakfast is in the buffet downstairs which as usual is a zoo! All six of us walk and present the hostess with the buffet tickets and go to sit down only to learn that I grabbed the tickets from the wrong day! Julie and the kiddos go ahead and find a place to sit while I go back to the room and get the right tickets. Everyone does a pretty good job eating, including our newest addition. He's not a huge fan of their congee and after eating some in Beijing and then again on the flight to Xi'an, I agree. If you've not experienced congee, imagine runny rice oatmeal....mmmm, mmmmm, good, huh? Not! He does eat some of it but seems to like the noodles and fried rice the best.
We head back to the room, quickly grab our stuff, pack our dirty laundry for the hotel to do and head back downstairs to meet Rea. We load up in the van and head back to the civil affairs office to complete the adoption. When we get there there is another couple from Spain from the sound of the conversation that is there with an older child. We come to learn that they are not completing the adoption and are in effect "returning" her to the CCAA. How sad! Her guide as well a Rea and the other officials in the room take turns talking with the girl and we can only hope that they are being nice to her and not berating her or anything. She looks sad and dejected - it is heartbreaking. No wonder they didn't return our excited smiles when we walked in. We start sorting out the paperwork, which consists of copies of the TA, copies of our passport photo pages and the homework Rea gave us in a pamphlet of Chinese to fill out. Julie and I are asked a few questions from one of the officials, a nice young girl, about why we want to adopt, if we have the resources to take care of him medically and provide an education, etc. She tells us that the Chinese people thank us for adopting Shan-Shan and ask if we have any other questions. We of course do not so we start signing our names multiple times and then stamp our signatures with our thumbs that we put in blue ink. Shan-Shan seals his end of the deal with his right foot stamp. We pose for pictures with the director, sign more papers with the notary, pay administrative fees and stuff and we're done! He is officially ours! We give them our gifts and they don't seem very interested. We'll chalk that one up to a cultural thing and be happy about it. Funny to watch how the Chinese interact with children. While we were waiting and doing paperwork a fun game to occupy Shan-Shan's time was to play follow the cigarette lighter. The director's driver had a blue lighter that he'd flick his Bic and move it around and Shan-Shan would follow the flame with his head. Not exactly a game we'd endorse at home. LOL! We also learned that he likes to play with paper airplanes and we have some good pictures of him playing with the kids.
Now we head to a place called the Security Bureau (scary name for a joint that ends up being the passport people) to get Shan-Shan's picture taken and apply for a passport so he can come home with us. The traffic in Xi'an looks a lot like Beijing now and it takes about 30 minutes to go four miles (I know because I saw a sign that said the Bell Tower was 6km away) and we were close to the Bell Tower. By now the kids, including Shan-Shan are all winding down. Boring paperwork and sitting in stop and go traffic isn't a ton of fun.
Rea let's us know that we're done for the day and that we have Weds. as a free day. We'll see the Terracotta Soldiers on Thursday and also will drive to Weinan to take pictures of the outside of the orphanage and see if we can locate Shan-Shan's finding spot. We want to collect as much information as we can while we are here so when he gets older and starts asking questions, we have something to share with him. Who knows by the time we come back his city could be gone from flooding, earthquake, who knows? A funny, but frustrating, side note that we wanted to share with other adoptive parents from this orphanage. We asked if we could visit the orphanage to take pictures but were told that it is chaotic there with construction on the new building that they will be opening in Sept. Sound familiar? Other families who have adopted from here over the recent years have heard similar responses. Must be a very nice building, if they ever get it done. If I put on my conspiracy theory hat, I guess that they are a poorer orphanage and don't have nice resources and don't want outsiders to see the conditions so they use this excuse. Either way, we're not getting in so no use fretting about it. Just thought it was funny that the same excuse gets used year after year.
Back at the hotel we get to the room we settle in and begin to restart the bonding process. We wonder if he walks because all we have seen him do is sit and stand. Shan-Shan still seems like he is in shock and just looks around and tries to take it all in. We snack on munchies in the room, play war, which isn't like normal war when you play with Veronica as she likes to look at the cards and gets upset when she loses. That must be Julie's competitive streak coming out. LOL! Julie puts Shan-Shan down for a nap and Sydney and I go exploring the hotel while Julie and Veronica lay down and color and Max watches Percy Jackson on the iPad. Sydney and I find that there isn't much of the hotel to explore and we decide to venture out. We walked around for a while and with our shirts on we got a lot of smiles and thumbs up signs. We walked down a dark, dangerous looking alley (do you really think we're that dumb? Hehehehe) a nice wide street and enjoyed looking at the fancy dresses and the various shops. This obviously isn't a tourist area because they are selling exciting things like power strips, pliers, and assorted things. We came back to the hotel and in a version of trust, but verify, I asked a number of hotel staffers about wireless access using Wi-Fi, WLAN and anything else I could think of but no joy. I pay a little more than a dollar to use a shared computer in the hotel's business center to send a quick email to let the folks back home know what we are doing. The girls at the business center love Sydney and ask to get their picture taken with her. Of course she is gracious enough to oblige. We head to the pool to check it out and apparently wandering a hotel isn't common in China as we were told where the elevator was a number of times. LOL!
Back in the room, Shan-Shan is still napping. We eventually wake him up and he starts to re-learn who we are. Poor guy, he probably keeps thinking he'll wake up back in the orphanage, but nope, you are ours, buddy. :) We gear up to venture out and try the stroller with him. So far we have been in and out of the van so much we have not used it. We go downstairs and get him strapped in. He's not a fan of change at all and this is no different. We decided to walk to the square in front of the big government building which also means we get to practice our car and bus dodging skills crossing the road. Along the way we get all kinds of looks from the curious to some that look almost angry to some who could care less. The double-wide stroller and 4 kids obviously draws a bit of attention though. It it pretty hot in Xi'an and we are only out for maybe 45 minutes or so before we head back to the room. We cool off a bit before we head to dinner. We decide that the hotel is still the best bet for now and enjoy spaghetti. Max has Bolognese, Julie and Sydney have plain and I enjoy an arribiatta. Shan-Shan loves the noodles but not the broccoli garnish no surprise there and we head back to the room.
Shan-Shan shows us that he can walk, hold his sippy cup and try to drink - all things we were not sure if he could do earlier. He and Veronica enjoy watching The Wiggles so Julie and I can only hope we have another Wiggles fan in the making. He really seems to be opening up, which is terrific! We are all hitting the wall and getting tired but are waiting for our laundry to come back. They are later than they said they'd be, but we don't know who to call or how we'd even communicate the issue. We are concerned that with our allergies that they'll use some wicked lead based detergent made from recycled computer parts or some overly perfumed stuff that'll drive us crazy. We've asked a number of times and everyone says to have the hotel do it or wash your own. The water in the tub comes out yellowish and is very hard based on the lather we got in the shower earlier so we're concerned about ruining our clothes so we are gambling with the laundry. The ladies show up with our laundry and they have wrapped them in clear cellophane like plastic bags, so we have dozens of them now. They seem to struggle with the same issue we were concerned about as the heavier clothes, like jeans, don't feel 100% dry. Good news is that we don't smell any perfumes and the whites are white. We get them all sorted, hang the ones that could use a bit more drying and call it a night. Another exciting day in China where we finalized our adoption. Not something that you do every day, huh?
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