Libby comes home

Thanks again everyone for following along with the blog. This is our last night here at the white swan. this has been a very short stay. Yesterday we went to the Buddhist temple to have Libby blessed by a monk before leaving China. We went to a wonderful dinner with our guide Kathy. Matt finally got a chance to eat fried poisonous snake with skin. When eating this delicacy the gall bladder is dropped in a small glass of liquor and filled with snakes blood. Matt won the coin toss and got the blood and gall bladder. Actually, he was the only person at the table who wanted a glass of snakes blood.

The fact is, I simply didn't want to leave China without doing something really chinese. Of course I found out later that most chinese people won't touch a glass of snakes blood. anway, dinner was last night. I'm still here. It was a good experience. The fried snake and skin were absolutely delicious. Even Kris ate the snake and liked it. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of the cook pulling the live snake out of the tank. (Sherril, I know you would really have loved that picture :)

Tonight we have dinner with our cousins Mark and Gretchen and their kids Grayson and Avery. We are really looking forward to seeing them, seeing where they live, and having a real american home cooked meal ! Tommorow we have an appointment to get our official papers from the American consulate and then it's home for all of us.

Kris and I will miss China, and have been planning our return trip. We'll see how Libby likes the 16 hour plane ride. Please wish us luck, pray for us, chant something, light a candle, or whatever it is you prefer to do to send some good vibes our way.

We look forward to seeing you all again in the good old USA.

Much Love

Matt and Kristin

Goodbye Changsha...Hello WHITE SWAN

Here we are on our last and final leg of the journey. Last night we checked into the White Swan...otherwise known as Third Base in the adoption community. The american consulate is nearby where your baby gets her american visa stamped into her chinese passport. You can't come home without going through Guangzhou, and you can't go through Guangzhou with a chinese baby, without staying at the White Swan. It's the only way to get your photo taken on The Red Couch, and the only way to get the famous White Swan Barbie. It's also the last chance to pick up the chinese souveneirs that you need to bring home to your family and friends.



I realize there has been a long dry spell in this blog, and for that I apologize. We were very busy in Changsha. Not only were we busy keeping Libby fed, clothed, changed, dry, and most important...entertained. But we were also very busy touring and getting a crash course in traveling with a new baby. We spent nearly 8 days in Changsha, in Hunan Province, birthplace of our beautiful baby Libby Yankun. This was a very busy week. Here's what we did in Changsha:

1. Dined with Fei's brother, Yang Bo, at his AWESOME restaurant in Changsha. No question this was one of the Best meals we had in China and I'm not kidding. It is also true that the service we recieved was so excellent that I did not want to leave. Actually, the food was so good that our guide, Kathy from Beijing, said that she will continue to bring groups of adopting families to this restaurant. We had Duck, Stir Fried Pork, spicy eggplant, and a dessert corn served fried with a little sugar on top. Everyone left very full and happy. And might I add that Yang Bo was especially kind to us. We got our own private room (maybe he was just being kind to the rest of the customers?) He also told us not to worry when one of our babies broke a dish (I won't mention any names, but her initials are EMIKO). Fei, your brother has an excellent restaurant and he is a very nice man. It was very crowded when we came at lunch time, and I have no doubt that he will be very successful in the restaurant business. We will recommend his restaurant to everyone we know visiting Changsha.

One of our guides - Amy standing next to Yang Bo and our intrepid culinary travel team.

2. we drove into the countryside to visit a rural village. We wanted to see how the 80% of chinese people who live in rural areas really live. for those of you who were unaware of this fact, only 20% of the 1.3 Billion chinese citizens live in cities, the other 80% live in rural areas and make their living from the land. This was a rather interesting trip because we actually boarded the bus and drove 40 minutes out of changsha into a totally random village, stopped the bus and got out (all 10 of us!) Our guide Kathy walked up to a random house and asked the occupants if we could come see their house and talk with them. not only did they invite us in, they made us tea, and likely would have fed us if we stayed any longer. They showed us around their entire house. I was blown away. Our guide shrugged and explained that chinese people are just friendly. Friendly?!... At least. Can you imagine driving a busload of foreigners up to some random American's house, getting out and asking for a tour of the house? Do you think this random American would serve tea or sodas? I told Kathy I didn't think this little village tour would work in America.

I was very surprised to see that many of the rural villages had relatively large houses. The house we visited had a simple concrete slab for a floor.

Our lovely Host

All chinese people it seems has at least one bicycle. This one is in the living room.


Very interesting to see such a nice television in this rural chinese village. we were told this family was upper middle class - not only was the house equiped with a large kitchen, but also had a TV!
The cooking is done with coal and propane. The propane tank (bottom left) powered the cook top and the tiled contraption to the right is a coal fired hot water heater.



Every village has a lake for irrigation, fire control, and fishing. Our hosts neighbor was fishing in their lake when we arrived.


3. We took an 8 hour bus ride to Chenzhou city, the city of Libby's birth. Riding on a bus for 8 hours with a baby is blast for the first 4 hours.....then they wake up! Actually, she enjoyed looking out the windows and was a real trooper. She didn't get really mad until about the last 45 minutes or so, but by then we were ALL very tired of the very bumpy roads and it was after 9 PM. Believe me, the babies weren't the only people crying on that bus that night.



4. We visited the embroidery factory. Hunan provicence is known for their fancy embroidery. We bought several keepsakes for Libby. It is very likely that Libby will come back to Hunan in a few years on a Heritage tour (or sooner?), but we still wanted to get a few things to put away for her. We also really want to fill our house with chinese stuff so it looks like a chinese restaurant.

Like so many of the factories we have visited thus far, there were several young girls hard at work making whatever it is they are selling. Here a nice young lady embroiders.
















Young Mao. The embroidery is quite stunning. The larger pieces look more like paintings than stitching.


















5. We toured a famous provincial museum with a perfectly preserved 2000 year old mummy. A very interesting museum. No pictures were allowed in the museum....sorry gang. Take my word for it. The mummy looked like a really old wrinkly person with mushy facial features.

6. We went to several baby stores, and my new fovorite mall. The Joindoor Hypermarket Seriously, I LOVE hypermarkets. Every town should have at least one. A Hypermarket is exactly like a JCPenneys, or Sears, except all the signs and prices are in Mandarin, there are more clerks, and of course, you have to pay in Yuan.


7. Finally, we played a lot, which is MUCH more fun than blogging. And also the computer doesn't cry when you don't blog with it. Libby's favorite games are:
1. drooling
2. standing up with help
3. drooling
4. looking in the mirror and squealing with delight
5. drooling
6. blowing rasberries (pthpthpthpthpthth - of course, this activity produces drooles).
7. playing with the ball.
8. drooling
9. flying through the air.
10. playing with cellophane.

Libby is so enthusiastic about cellophane that we can use it during travel to keep her attention for more than 15 minutes at a time. And of course in baby time 15 minutes is approximately 1 adult year.

She can pick up the ball all by herself!!



Here she is doing 3 of her favorite things: Standing up while blowing rasberries and drooling!





Baby loves Bingans (mandarin for crackers or cookies).

The Dolton Hotel in Changsha was our first 5 star hotel. What amazes me is the number of staff. There are 2 or 3 people at the door at all times, but this was our favorite. He really loved the kids and you couldn't get past him without him cooing at the babies. Here we are saying goodbye to our favorite doorman.


A very bittersweet goodbye to Hunan Province, birthplace of our beautiful baby Libby Yankun.

Back in time to sunday august 20th - A very good wall

Our travel group standing in the parking lot of one of the great wonders of the world. The wall is behind us on the mountain.




I realize that this post is out of order, and many of you (grandparents) just want to see more baby pictures. However, think of this blog as one of those very sophisticated independent films where each scene is out of order and you don't really know where the story begins until the end of the movie. This blog is like that

I learned a very important lesson about parenthood before meeting miss Libby. that is, parents don't really get to be sick, you may get a few hours of rest if you are very very lucky, otherwise you have to do it like the football pros - get your shot and back in the game. Our trip has been a little like that. After spending Saturday the 19th in bed with a MASSIVE and very painful sinus infection (did I mention I had a FEVER!) I get one day of rest (ONE DAY, OY) and then it's BACK ON THE BUS. I suppose I could have stayed in the hotel room and missed the great wall - but since my fever broke over the night I felt obligated to get back on the bus for more whirlwhind touring. At this point, we had all day Sunday to tour (and by all day I mean about 9AM to 10PM - now THATS touring).

We started out at the great wall. It is a pretty amazing sight but I do have two observations. First, you can only see part of the wall at a time, so it's difficult to imagine the scale of this 3000 mile wall from the local tourist checkpoint where you only see a small portion. Second, importantly, the stairs leading up to the top of the section we visited were very run down. Our guide said something about being built a couple thousand years ago...yada yada....as we climbed the broken and uneven stairs up to the top I kept thinking that maybe we should call it the Very Good Wall. A Great wall would probably have handicap access, and more up to date stairs....maybe an elevator to the top of this section would have been good. We climbed up to the third guard post you see from the picture, it took more than 45 minutes and frankly hurt a little, that's a HELL OF A LOT OF STAIRS!

Seriously, it was a good feeling to be standing on the great wall of china. I felt very priveledged at that moment when I realized that despite the thousands of tourists that visit each year, my guess is most people on earth don't get to stand on this monolith. It was also a good feeling, when Kris and I stood on this wall, to think about what an amazing achievement of Chinese ingenuity this wall is. It makes me very proud of my daughters chinese heritage and in a way I feel connected to this country, it's people, and even it's achievements in a way that is difficult to describe.

After the great wall, we went for some famous Peking duck. Of course Beijing (formerly Peking) is where it was invented, and since you know how I love my duck.......of course this was not to be missed.

The view from the bottom looking up. It's a long climb. Seriously.



Wearing Ashen Relic T-shirts on the great wall - Ashen Relic is Ryan's (on the left) band.

More From the Dolton Hotel in Changsha

It's been only three days, but our feet haven't yet hit the ground again, we are still floating on air. For those of you who have been through this, you will know exactly what I mean. For those of you who will soon go through it (Brian and Wendy, I believe you are next) you will soon know. The moment she was placed in our arms, time and history stopped. This is pure bliss and there are simply no words to describe it.

We would like to thank all of you who have been watching our blog and sending us emails (and calling our parents...Thanks Will and Lorrie!) It's really terrific to have such support from afar. We are having a terrific time in China with our adoptarinos and our wonderful wonderful guides, but it's not the same without our friends and family from home. We look forward to seeing you all.

ITS A GIRL!!

Libby's Here!! She is beautiful, happy, healthy, playful, a good eater. All three are doing very well. Very Very Very well!

Saturday August 19th. Is there a doctor in the house?

Good morning from Beijing. This is a short post. Matt woke up with a killer sinus infection and a fever of 101. There was an entire day of touring planned (Kris was out from 9AM until 9 PM) BIG touring day. But since we get Libby in just 2 1/2 days, Matt thought it best to rest and try to stop being sick. This was not his first sinus infection while traveling (only time he ever gets them). We tried to call a doctor, but we didn't cover that in Just Enough chinese.....(Fei, maybe you can add a section on getting medical care in china?) all we got was a lot of different people on the other end of the phone, and the offer of a traditional chinese doctor. fortunately, our travel clinic at Kaiser insisted that we bring along an antibiotic just in case (THRIVE!). I started my antibiotics, and slept for about 12 hours while Kris toured. I woke up Sunday with no fever and feeling much better. Thanks Kaiser, and thanks PHARMA.

The only interesting thing about this day from my perspective was lunch. I was feeling rather bad, but really needed to eat. I called room service to order soup which was all I thought I could manage. They have soup of the day here and it's different each day. Of course, the young lady on the other end of the phone gave me the soup name in mandarin, and I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the soup was. But I was too sick to work it out and since it is only $2.00 I figured I'll order the soup. I don't have to eat it if I don't like it.

Guess what. I got an absolutely delicious hot and steaming bowl of Chicken Soup. Perfect.

I will try to get Kris to tell you about her day touring Tianneman square, the summer palace, acrobat show. etc. But she is still sleeping, and I am NOT going to wake her up to ask her to tell you about it. You will have to ask her later :) Here is a picture I found on the camera. I think you may recognize this place.

See you Tomorrow.

Friday, August 18th - Enter the Dragon

This dragon, from the 9 dragon screen at Beihai park, is a particualy menacing example of the chinese dragons that are on virtually every surface in china. I'm not kidding. EVERY surface in china has a dragon. Maybe the locals get used to it, and stop noticing. I really enjoy the dragons and will miss them when we leave.


Good morning from Beijing. It’s Monday Morning, the 21^st of August at 6 am as I write this. Its been a couple days since I was able to keep up with our travel journal as we have been busy traveling. This is the problem with a travel journal is that the more you travel, the more you have to say and the less time you have to say it in. Makes a travel journal very difficult. Also, Kris and I leave for Changsha tonight and will get Olivia tomorrow afternoon. I can’t believe it’s finally here, and anything I have to report about our recent touring to the sights of China seems extremely trivial. Nonetheless, the camera is very full of pictures, and I don’t ever want to forget this trip. So I will try and hit the highlights at least.

Friday was the first day of a 3-day whirlwhind guided tour which begins at 9 AM each morning the lobby of the hotel and ends rather late. The guides pack way too much in because in addition to the important historic sights, they seem obliged to direct you to a handful of shopping centers (the silk factory, the jade factory and the Cloisonne factory) where you feel similarly obliged to buy something, and we have no doubt they receive a cut of the sales from busloads of tourists they bring. In some cases, it is rather obvious.

Friday was particularly auspicious because we finally found the Starbucks in Beijing! We both ordered our favorite drinks (I had a drip coffee, and Kris an Americano with skim milk and raw sugar. the drinks were remarkably indistinguishable from our starbucks at home, except the coffee was just a little weaker. Not too bad.

After getting coffee, Kris and I met our guide and found out that we would be touring alone with her because the other members of our party had not yet arrived from their various locations. Our tour included Beihai park, the temple of heaven, a cloisonné factory, and a silk factory. the first two sights were amazing and beautiful historic sights on a scale that I am simply not used to seeing. Basically these are extremely large parks full of impressive religious architecture with grand Buddhist temples and houses of the former emperors. Beihai park was especially beautiful. Like the other public squares we have visited over the last several days, the park was full of older Chinese people exercising, dancing, playing music and doing water calligraphy. All this occurs at the base of beautiful and historic Buddhist temples.

Scenes from Behai Park

This is what happens when you end up on a tour with a guide: you go from hanging out with locals, to donning the tourist uniform and becoming - gasp - a tourist. We paid 10 Yuan ($1.25) for the priveledge of taking this picture.

The locals at Beihai park practice thier traditional fan dance in the morning (background) and exercise with string and top.

Men are writing traditional poems. This is so interesting to watch them write all these poems, watch them evaporate, then begin writing again. I never saw any women writing, only playing with the caligraphy pens, it must be a man thing.


The 9 dragon screen at Beihai park is one of 3 in China (the world?). They are very intricate and beautiful and represent the power of the emporer.

Kris and I assume the position in from of the Buddhist temple in Beihai park. Actually, we copied some chinese tourists who took their picture this way right before we did.....when in Rome.....

After Beihai park, we visited the temple of Heaven. The temple of heaven was built by one of the emperors. (Of course, the guide gave us so much history, I forget which emperor, but we bought the book and will look it up later if you would like to know.) Like the other sights, the temple of heaven is built on a scale that is hard to imagine by western standards, and was very full of Chinese and European tourists. Upon arriving we were swarmed by a group of children whose parents insisted talk to us in English. this was great fun and the children spoke very good English.

Okay, you all know just how much I hate to be the center of attention. You can imagine how hard this was for me to endure. I felt like a rockstar on much of this trip and have been greeted with much enthusiasm by so many of the locals. I have been so tired of feeling ashamed to be an american. I don't here. I don't feel like I have to apologize and It's very refreshing to feel good about being a mei guo.



The Temple of heaven in the background. This is not an actual religious temple, it is a simply a grand place built by the emporer to worship. The thing about emporers. They like really really big houses with lots of gold dragons painted on them.

This is detail from the temple picured above. It is being restored for the olympics with some fresh gold paint for the dragons.

Every detail of these palaces is covered. Here's the doorknob to the palace.

The cloisonné and silk factories, were, in fact, very interesting indeed. Not just because we had the opportunity to see how the Chinese make their wonderful pots and silk goods, but because it was a bit of a lesson in Chinese culture as well.

We learned that much of the silk and cloisonné is produced through the labor of young girls (not sure exactly how young, they were simply described as young girls by our guides) many of whom are recruited through the orphanages at a very young age, and apprenticed into one of the “trades”. The apprenticeship I am told can begin as early as age 4, but at the factories we visited, the youngest girls were teenagers. We did not see much of the actual factory, what we saw was a few individuals (5 or 6 at each station) showing us how the goods were produced. At the silk factory, the guide told us rather proudly that their factory has more than 2000 young girls tying silk threads into rugs everyday. The work I saw appeared to be relatively safe and non-toxic, but extremely tedious, monotonous, repetitive. Imagine tying tiny silk threads (a centimeter in length or so) to the backing of a rug in a very complex color pattern for several hours a day for years and years. Our guide told us a small silk rug can take several months or a couple of years to complete because it can only be tied by hand, there is no way to have a machine produce a silk rug in this style. This is not the life I would have wanted for our daughter.

The factories we tour are demonstration factories, not the real thing. I assume this is why we don't see any young girls working on pots and silk despite the fact that guides at both facilities seemed rather proud of the large number of girls they had in their factories producing goods. Considering how sensitive americans are about child labor it was actually very strange to hear.

Because you see the finished pots in the gift shop - and we were overwhelmed by clerks who wanted to assist us by showing us every pot in the place, I actually didn't get a picture of a finished pot. But, they are beautiful, I'll get a picture from somewhere.

Kris and Matt stretching silk threads into a comforter.