Hello again! Sorry it has been so long since I updated the blog. We have been a bit more relaxed here in Guangzhou, and we are all adjusting to our new relationships, so I have been a bit lax with my public relations responsibilities. (left is Megan holding hands with her foster-sister, Claire in Wuhan) For the most part we have been on our own to explore the surrounding neighborhoods here. It is very easy to interact with everyone, as the entire neighborhood seems to be thriving off of the adoption business that pours through the White Swan Hotel non-stop. Almost every shop sells childrens clothing and T-shirts and hats sporting mama, brother, sister, dada, grandma, etc, written in chinese for the proud family members. We know that we are heading for a very popular but traditional shopping district later today, so we have tried to lay off the local trinket dealers goods as much as possible until after we see whats available. Everyone here seems to sell almost identical goods in each shop, so we figure there is a better quality version of everything if we look hard enough! Saturday morning we walked a few blocks to get the children their quick physicals for their visas. Everything went find and only one child in our party was diagnosed with anything. All the kids have had little cold symptoms, but Madalyn had an upper respiratory infection developing, so they gave her a prescription of antibiotics and we were on our way. (right: David and nurses at the clinic) It was a nice walk, and all around the village there were residents appearing to have a normal "weekend", playing badminton and the chinese version of hacky-sack, which is played with something that looks like a weighted badminton birdie made with colorful craft feathers. The kids have been trying to master the game, but so far have only managed to get over their self-consciousness about how they look playing! There are planty of native folk who aren't that good at it either. Later in the afternoon Michele went with one member of each other family to fill out all of the remaining paperwork we had to prepare for the consulate. We also had our laundry done for a reasonable price, which was a relief after what we were charged in Wuhan! It cost the equivalent of about $65 there to wash what we had done her for ~$25. It's funny how quickly your attitude can adjust to the local market value! We all had lunch together again yesterday and it was again about $5 per person for a feast, including sodas and plenty of local beer. You get used to things like that pretty quickly. One family in our group got tired of Chinese food pretty early in the trip, and when they saw a Papa Johns pizza place that delivered they decided we were all ordering pizza last night. Our guide phoned in the order for us and when the pizza showed up it turned out it was almost $20 per pizza!!! I was so torqued! I couldn't get over how expensive it was even by American standards, and it wasn't even good pizza! That'll teach us to eat American. We have tried it a few times but I have been disappointed every time with the exception of the western breakfast food.

So, yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Temple of Chen, which is not a religious temple at all, but a family memorial. It is actually an elaborate garden and park area. There were a few nice stores, including a wonderful art gallery where you could watch a few local artists performing works. We had a beautiful scroll made for Megan with her chinese name on it, and found some nice pieces of artwork to bring home with us. One artist was doing Chinese fingerpainting, which is phenomenal if you haven't seen it before. They make beautifully detailed lanscape ink paintings using only their hands and fingers. It is amazing to watch. We also found some nice winter scenes painted by a famous Chinese artist. We were told by our guide that the temple shops were legitimate goods, so we trust that they were really done by him. They will make nice Winter decorations at home. Afterwards we stopped at another Carrefour store, which is not Wal-mart, but apparently Wal-mart is its primary stockholder! They make the cashiers where Carrefour hats, which look exactly like the paper Burger King hats from home. We were tempted to ask for some but didn't want to embarass anyone, so we behaved ourselves.
Today we should be receiving Megan's visa from the American consulate. Our guide, David, will go and pick them up for us. We have to go to the consulate tomorrow for the "swearing in" ceremony, so we will see it then, but it is about an hour away so there was no need to put the kids through the extra busride for no reason. David should be back about 2:30pm, at which time we are going to have our "red couch" photos taken at the famous red couch here at the White Swan. It is a White Swan adoption tradition, so it is a "must do". After that it is off on our shopping spree and then to another group dinner! One of the most recent highlights of the trip was going to the ATM this morning and seeing our bank account balances in Chinese Yuan!! Woohoo!! Wish that was real dollars!
Anyway... I'll try to get at least one more update in before we head out... probably tomorrow night. Have a great day!

(stockings go on the head, right?)

At the White Swan

We arrived safely, but late, in Guangzhou. Megan's first flight was a great success. She did better than Daddy did. Sadly, I still cannot view the blog real time, but I am getting daily copies of the blog emailed to me from my sister, so I am now able to read everyone's posts. I will try to update a bit more tomorrow if my connection here is better, which it seems to be. Tomorrow AM we have Megan's physical for her American visa so we can bring her home. I'm sure it won't be a problem since... well, she's perfect. The hotel is beautiful so far. I am not sure we can see it all in the time we are here! I definitely need a map. The rooms are very nice, but feel a bit like I would expect a room on a ship to feel. They don't waste any space in the room, so it all works very nicely and I am sure we will all be comfortable. Just when I was getting good at communicating with my limited Chinese vocabulary... everyone here seems to speal English better than most people at home! There appear to be a lot of small shops very close to the hotel though, so there may still be hope. Til morning. Goodnight all.

Last tango in Wuhan

Today is the last day in Wuhan. It has been very nice being here and I have really felt like we are "really" in China. I may have said this before, but when we were in Beijing it really hadn't sunk in yet that we were half-way around the world from home. I think it was because there was so much sight-seeing and so little interaction with the everyday people as opposed to the hotel staff and tour guides so used to dealing with Westerners. Here we have really been on our own much of the time to fend for ourselves outside of the hotel. Fortunately, most of the shopkeepers have calculators to add up totals, so they can just show you. Most of us have become fairly quick with the yuan to dollar conversions in our heads so that we can calculate whether or not we want to buy something. The cost of most things is in the low to reasonable range, with some distinct exceptions. There are many clothing stores that sell Western atheletic apparrel, and it seems to be the same price as home. A double cheesburger meal at McDonalds, however, is only about 16 yuan, or ~$2.50. That's some of the more expensive food around outside of the hotel. Restaurants are dirt cheap, and the local beers are very good, and very inexpensive, but you definitely have to ask to have it cold. Most everything is warm here unless you either pick it out of a cooler or you ask for it specifically cold. Even table water is served freshly steamed (sometimes to make it potable, and sometimes just to make it hot).
Michele's trip to Qichun yesterday was definitely one to remember for all of the parents fortunate enough to make the journey. Everyone was able to get a good feeling for the very rural surroundings that the children were born into, and they had a fantastic meal with the orphanage director and staff. The food was phenomenal and so was the beer I am told, which was all that they had to offer for drink, so even Michele had a swig or two. The director was very apologetic about the meal, concerned that it was not up to restaurant standards and everyone was agast because it was some of the best tasting food they had so far. We have some fairly sound evidence that the Megan (Xiaoxiang) was the director's pet, as he had a special smile and gleam about him whenever he was asked a question about her. He was, as you might remember from the photos, also the one carrying Megan when she arrived on Gotcha Day! Megan's foster sister, Claire, had the same caregiver while in Qichun, so they are very fond of each other and definitely recognize each other when they are together. Fortunayely, she will be living in New Hampshire, so we will likely see much more of her in the future. Gotta go. Megan just woke up from a cat nap. Mommy is a little under the weather today, so she is resting. (must have been the beer!)

General ramblings from the Far East...

It is currently Thursday morning here. Yesterday we went to visit the Hunan Provincial Museum, specifically to see the display of Marquis Yi (so named by the French archeologist who discovered the mausoleum in 1978) of the Prince of the State of Zeng, ~433 BC. This is of particular interest because the State of Zeng was primarily the area now known as the Hubei province, which is where Wuhan is (where we are now) and where Qichun (pronounced Chee-Choon, where Megan was born and nurtured). Most of the items were fairly "expected", cooking pots, weapons, etc., but for the size. The very large items recovered were obviously used to cook for a banquet or the entire royal entourage rather than a small family.

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_39314.htm

There was a display of human and horse armor that was very interesting, but the musical instruments were the most fascinating. There was a complete set of gigantic bells, hung in an arrangement that spanned about 30 feet. There was also a variety of stringed instruments, which I gathered from the tour guide that they were the earliest known, and a few different types of drums and chimes. We purchased a DVD containing photos from the museum and a concert performed by the musicians employed by the museum.

After that we went to a local Chinese restaurant for our second "group meal" since we arrived in Wuhan. It was very good, but not quite as tasty as the first one we went to Sunday night before Gotcha Day. We have tried just about everything put in front of us in the restaurants, and have yet to be disappointed.

Our guide, Christina, was able to arrange a trip to Qichun today to visit with the orphanage director and staff, and to attempt to locate the places where each of the children were found, and get a feel for the general area where they were born. Because it is a three hour drive each way, the director would only agree to meet with one parent of each group, as he would not allow us to bring the children back. I suspect that there are additional reasons as well, and good ones, as it could be potentially traumatic to revisit the orphanage and the social workers there. We found out that the foster parents were actually employees of the orphanage as well, meaning that they actually work in the orphanage in addition to fostering the children, so it is possible that the children spent the workday in the orphanage as well. So it is very likely that today they will actually be meeting the children's primary caregivers, though they are not likely to divulge who took care of who. Apparently, there was an incident in the past where the foster parent or parents actually tried to visit the adoptive family and child at the hotel after Gotcha Day, and it caused quite a stir for everyone involved, so they no longer allow the actual caretakers to make the trip on Gotcha Day. This also explains why Megan did not have the baby photo album that we mailed to her. She did have Mr. Krinkles though, which as it turns out was what first made us cry when the girls were brought in the room on Gotcha Day! Go figure! We had spent a great deal of time with Mr. Krinkles, however, since he was purchased back in 2005 with the expressed intent of making the journey to China ahead of us. He spent well over 2 years sleeping with us to get our scent, and perhaps it paid off as she certainly took to us immediately! We were very happy to see him again!
So to get back to today... Michele decided to make the trip to Qichun, so its Daddy's day with Megan! We are going to be heading out in a few minutes to explore a local department store and find the McDonalds and Pizza Hut that are within walking distance of the hotel. We all love the food here, but it will be nice to experience a bit of home as well (supposedly it tastes pretty close). We had some KFC, and while it tasted OK, we are pretty sure that something in it caused me to break out in huge hives from my elbows to my knees. Benadryl seems to knock most of it out, so I should survive. More later! Love to all. As fantastic as this experience is, we can't wait to get back home.

It's official! (pictures added on Wednesday!!)

Today we went back to the Civil Affairs Office to sign the final adoption paperwork and have our interviews with the officials. We were give temporary (24 hour) custody yesterday so that we could make sure we wanted her!!! Guess what we said?!! After that we stopped by a small shopping mall and went through the local department/gocery superstore called Carrefour. We were able to stock up on the local formula so that we could transition, as well as any junk food, soda, water, etc. Then it was back to the hotel for more quiet family time. Tomorrow and Thursday we will get out for a little sightseeing while we wait for the babies' Chinese passports to be drawn up so we can move on to the next phase. The internet is too slow here in the evening to upload any pictures, so I will get them to you in the morning. It is so strange to know that it is Tuesday morning at home and I am about to go to bed, and when I wake up tomorrow morning it will still be Tuesday at home!

Gotcha Day!

Introducing...........Megan Elizabeth Geier and family!

Sorry about the delay. I tried to post pictures last night but the internet is very weak here by our standards, and I just didn't ahve the patience to wait up for it. I will try again now, and if there are no pictures you know why. We had a day that we could only have dreamed of yesterday. The babies were all so perfect that they didn't cry on the two hour busride, and ony one of them (not Megan!) cried for a few seconds when they were handed over. Megan came into the room in the Qichun Social Services Director's arms and he appeared to be beaming holding her. See for yourself if you can! We stayed in the hotel yesterday so we could all bond, and bond we did! She had been perfectly comfortable with all of us, and even fell asleep in Corey's arms. We were all very jealous but shared that feeling of instant gratification and pride in many other ways throughout the day. She loves my beard, and even if she is happy and content with what she is doing, she gets a little upset every time Michele leaves the room!! We did get her a little off schedule with all of the morning events and being in a new place with new faces and voices, but she caught up and fell asleep at 7:00 PM on the money, as scheduled. She ended up having her lunch a few hours late, so she made up for that around midnight! It was fun, though she does normally sleep for 12 hours through the night. More later! Thank you for all of the prayers. Since most of them have been answered, you have some time off until Friday when we get back on another airplane to head to Guangzhou!! See ya soon!

Great Wall (of fog!)

Trying to play a little catch-up now that we are settled in Wuhan and trying to kill another hour before going to pick up Megan! We went to the Great Wall on Saturday morning while still in Beijing. It is about an hours drive outside the city to get to it. The most popular site is the Badaling wall, which is much more crowded and "touristy". We decided to go to the Mutianyu section of the wall, which is more countryside and less people. Unfortunately, the day was extremely foggy and the visibility was quite limited, as you will see from the pictures. It was still quite incredible to be standing on the Great Wall together! On the way back we drive through the olympic village, but it was again quite foggy so photos don't do anything much justice. You 's be better off looking at it on-line!!

login requirement lifted

FYI... the requirement to login with an account in order to post a comment was a setting that could be turned off, and I have. I apologize for not seeing it earlier, but you no longer have to login to post. I assume since you dont have to login, you will have to identify yourself somehow or we wont know who left the comment! Thanks... in ~75 minutes we will be standing in the "meeting room" waiting for Megan to come in!!!

Update...and we can't view the blog

We are actually having difficulty viewing the blog. We can still post to it, and will continue to do so. If you have any questions please email them to one of us so we will know what you are asking.

We spent yesterday (Saturday) morning at the Great Wall followed by a drive-by of the Olimpic Village just outside Beijing. I will try to catch up with those posts later tonight. We flew to Wuhan today and met Christine, our guide for the week and the one who made all of our arrangements for Wuhan and Guangzhou, including Gotcha Day and all of the official adoption stuff we are involved in throughout the rest of our stay. This is the first time that all four families in our original adoption group have met face-to-face. Christine took us for a walk to one of the nicer Chinese restaurants in the area of the hotel. She ordered about 10 items off the menu and we all sampled whatever we wanted until we were full. It is incredibly inexpensive here. The bill was just under 450 yuan for thirteen people, including drinks. $100 American is 698 yuan today... so that work s out to less than $5 per person???? Crazy! Well... tomorrow is Gotcha Day, and we are told that we are leaving the hotel at 9:30 to pick up Megan at 10:00 AM, so for you that will be 10:00 PM on Easter Sunday!! We are told they will introduce the babies one family at a time, so it might not be 10:00 on the dot... but it won't be long after 10 as they do not like to drag it out. Having the caretakers "hang around" is an unnecessary stress on the babies than is necessary, and since we already know tht the actual foster parent will not be bringing Megan to us, there will be no real reason to hank aroound and "chat". We will likely be back to the hotel by 11:00 AM!! Happy Easter to all! Talk to you again soon!

Last post with pictures added!

It is so beautiful here in Beijing. All of the locals are nice and most of them speak enough English to get us thru. Our tour guide for yesterday and today is "John" and he is wonderful. At first we thought we were getting robbed because we had only arranged a driver through the concierge at the hotel (Jack), and the driver picks us up and drives a couple of blocks and pulls over and this guy jumps in the front passenger seat! We weren't expecting it, so it took us a bit by surprise, but it was all uphill from there and we had a great time! Apparently, John is a tour guide by trade, and they call in each night to see if they have work the next day. If not, they must network with the van drivers, who are all independent operators that rent vans from the tour company each day). So when the drivers go out, they pick up a guide who probably gets a small cut of the driver's fee and the chance to score a tip. He did... a nice one too, because he was teriffic and he really made it a great day! We felt like he was part of our family the way he took to hanging with us adults and the kids. We spent the whole day yesterday sightseeing--from 9am to 4pm. We went to the Forbidden City and saw where the Emporers worked, lived and played. We then went for a tour of Hutong on bicycle-driven rickshaws. I have to say this was the best so far. It was a tour of a small, but "old" and still mostly authentic Beijing neighborhood. Everyone we passed had smiles and greeted us. After this tour we went to the Temple of Heaven and it was nice as well. By this time we were all very tired. We took a ton of pictures. After taking about a 3 hour nap we met up with John and Mary of New Hampshire and went to walk the city. It looks so much like New York's Time Square. They have about 70 food vendors lined up on the sidewalk selling all sorts of yucky fishy stuff. The dumplings looked good but we could not tell what was in them and the vendors did not speak much English. We did some shopping and then went to a Chinese restaruant and Mary and John went to the night before. It was cheap and delicious.
In about 5 hours we will begin our day at the Great Wall. This is the attraction I have been waiting to see. I think we might go to Mings tomb after but I am not sure. I think we might come back to the hotel after he wall and do a little more shopping and hit the pool and Sauna. It is our last night here and we have a ton of repacking to do. The time change and jet lag have me up most of the night---it is 4am here and I have been up for about an hour trying to keep quiet. I cannot wait for Sunday morning and travel to Wuhan. I just want to touch down in the Province Megan is in. I haven't really shopped for her because I want to wait to shop with her. I have had over two years shopping without her and I am done with that. Please keep us in your prayers, and we'll be thinking about everyone, particularly tomorrow, Easter Sunday.
Talk to you very soon Love to all, Michele (and the gang) (pics to follow later)

We made it!

We finally left the ground at 3:10 your time yesterday and arrived at 4:14 today China time. A somewhat lengthy ordeal getting out of the airport and back to the hotel, but nothing too tremendously excing. None of us got too much sleep on the plane, and we have to be ready at 8:00 AM to head out on a tour of the Great Wall, weather dependent. Off to bed now. So ends Day 1 and 2! Cya tomorrow

And away we go!!!!!!!

Well..almost! We're sitting in Newark Liberty Airport waiting for them to finish working on our plane..yay! Hey... at least they are looking at it before we leave! Our departure is delayed from 12:15 to and estimated 2:00PM, so thats not too bad. We're pros at waiting! We'll update tomorrow when we are safely in our hotel in Beijing.

Thanks for all the wonderful thoughts and prayers... keep'em comin'!

Here are the final details...

Only two more panicking days before take-off!! We are all set but for a few loose ends. I wanted everyone to be able to have an idea of where we will be so you can picture our trip during the day when you are busy praying for us (while we are sleeping on the other side of the Earth)! We will be flying on a Continental Boeing 777-300 to Beijing and back from Hong Kong. The China domestic flights will all be on China Southern Airlines. http://boeing.com/commercial/777family/longer_range/index.html

We will stay at the Novotel Peace Hotel in Beijing until Easter morning when we fly to Wuhan. For members of Redeemer who may be reading this... we were thinking of calling Lynn's cell phone right in the middle of service to wish everyone a Happy Easter... we expect the ringer will be on!! (Just kidding!) http://www.novotel.com/fichehotel/gb/nov/3115/fiche_hotel.shtml

On Monday, morning we think, we get Megan!! We expect that she will be brought to the hotel for us, but we aren't sure. We are staying at the Hongguang Hotel in Wuhan. It is relatively new and I can't find a good source for it on the web, so I will have to post photos when we get there. Megan and her "sisters" will be traveling from Qichun, which is about an hour away by train, or about three by bus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qichun

On the following Friday evening, or about 5:00AM US Eastern time, we take off for Guangzhou and will spend our final days at the luxurioius White Swan Hotel.

http://www.white-swan-hotel.com/

We will have a wonderful time experiencing Megan's beautiful and historical world while we are there, but we already can't wait to be back home!!! See you soon, and hope to hear from you over the next couple of weeks right here or in our email. Love and peace to all, and to all a reassuring Holy Week and a beautiful Easter day! We miss everyone already!!

pgeier@hotmail.com

mhgeier@sbcglobal.net

The trip is all set!!

Well, its almsot time to go. Everything seems so much more "real" now that we have a travel itinerary! Day 1 we will be flying out of Newark, New Jersey on a 14 hour direct flight to Beijing, China. Since China is 13 hours ahead of us, when we arrive in Beijing it will actually be Day 2, and 27 hours later than when we started! I wish the last two years could have moved at that pace!! We would have gotten Megan a whole lot sooner!
We will spend that night, and all of Days three and four in Beijing seeing whatever we can squeeze in. On the morning of Day 5 we are all off to Wuhan in the Hubei province. We will arrive around noon and head off to settle in at our hotel. This is our last full day as expectant parents and siblings, so we're not quite sure what we will be doing. Probably finding all new ways to be impatient!
Day 6 is "GOTCHA DAY"!!! This is it! The day we have all been waiting for, for 33 months now! We aren't sure what time we will get Megan, but it is definitely today! With four potential photographers we should be able to capture the moment! This will begin our time learning all about each other and visiting Megan's home turf We will be in Wuhan for 3 more full days (Days 7-9) before heading to Guangzhou (also known as Canton, as in Cantonese cuisine!) on Day 10. With luck we will be able to visit Megan's home county of Qichun before we leave Wuhan. Some families in the past have been able to visit with the Social Services Director and staff, and visit places where Megan spent time with her foster family. That would be fantastic, but we won't know until we are there if we will be that blessed. The time her serves two purposes. First, we are getting the cultural experience to bring home with Megan. the Chinese are very proud people and hope very much that we will nurture a memory of her heritage within her as she grows. Secondly, we have no choice! It takes about a week for her visa to be ready so that we can bring her home! This is done in Guangzhou, and that's where every adoptive family ends their journey.
Days 10-14 will be spent in Guangzhou. We will receive Megan's visa on day 13, but it takes the consulate 24 hours to guarantee the visa, whatever that means, so we cannot leave mainland China until after 6:00 PM on Day 14. Guangzhou "luxary" portion of the journey, as the White Swan hotel is a fabulous 5-star hotel with a premium riverfront location near most of the attractions. Every adoptive family also stays here as part of the adoption process. They want to make sure you go out with a bang!
On the morning of Day 15 we are on a short flight to Hong Kong, and then off on a 16-hour non-stop return flight to Newark. When the wheels hit the tarmac in Jersey, Megan will officially be a U.S. citizen! We have decided to make the shorter trip to Michele's Mom's house on Long Island rather than head for home during afternoon traffic. We'll head for home and pick up Dugan on Day 16. Home, Sweet Home!!
Evan and Corey will obviously miss a bit of school, but they should be able to produce some sort of project on their travel experiences to prove the "educational value". Fortunately, Spring break is not long after we get back, so they will have some free time to catch up on whetever they missed. Tayler just began her new job in Vermont, but her management was kind enough to grant her the time off to join us! Hotels in major Chinese cities are primarily 2-person max rooms. Most travelers are on business, not family travel, so rooms with high occupancy levels are hard to come by and very expensive. We will have two adjacent rooms everywhere we goso we don't have to worry as much. They always add a crib to the adoptive parent's room, and arrangements have been made for a rollaway in the other room so Tayler and the boys will bunk in together. I'm sure they wouldn't want it any other way!
Of course, you will know when we leave, so all of the Day 1 through 16 will make more sense to you, but I didn't feel that it was necessary to post actual dates on the blog. Please post to the blog any time you want... questions, comments, whatever!!! You can also email us at pgeier@hotmail.com or mhgeier@sbcglobal.net if you prefer that to posting questions or comments. We will be trying our best to update the blog each night with stories and pictures from our daily adventures, but at least to say hello and we're alive. We are only assuming we will have time to do that though, so don't panic if we appear to be missing in action. I suppose we just have to hope for the best and see what we get! The important thing is that we get Megan! Please keep us in your prayers as we travel. We won't be surrounded by too many God-loving Christians while we are there... so we can use all the help we can get!! See you here again soon!! Love to all of you, from all of us!