Gotcha Day! - a day late :-(

Sorry for the belated post. The hotel we are staying in has internet, but it's not wifi nor is it prominently displayed. I actually only found out about it while going through some drawers looking for clothes.

Anyhoo, Gotcha Day has come and gone! We flew out of Beijing Airport around 7:30 and arrived in Harbin about 9:30. We were met by our local guide "Katherine" and our driver, Mr. Soon and off we went! Much to our surprise, we were being taken directly to the Adoption Center! Denise didn't have the gifts ready and we were totally unprepared for that opportunity! Our original plan was to fly into Harbin, check into the hotel, and in the afternoon go to the Adoption Center. It's nice to see consistency in the driving throughout China. Our driver was actually honking @the police to get out of his way! Harbin is a rather rough neck of the woods, quite a bit of trash on the streets, many people selling produce and foods on the streets from the back of their bikes. It's times like this we truly miss good old Elyria, OH.

So Denise hastily puts the gift bags together for the Director and nannies, in the back of the van. We hustle into the Adoption Center to find out what's going on. I have to be honest, from this point on the whole thing is kind of a blur. It's like signing paperwork for buying a car, and a house, and, I don't know, refinancing your house all @the same time! We were in a confernece type room w/our guide and the Director of the the Adoption Center comes in, a lady by the name of "Susan". She speaks some English, but uses our guide for the sticky parts. A lot of  "don't worry, no problem" throughout the process. They actually had us shut our camera down because they would be putting together an album for us to pick up later in the week. Just a lot of stuff going on and this "crazy boy" shows up!

This picture is actually from our hotel room later on in the day. Again, it is impossible to put into words what transpired @that point in time. He came in w/his nannies, turned out to actually be his teachers, and it's just a whirlwind! Questions in Mandarin, roughly translated, the teachers going over his likes and dislikes. We sign some paperwork, take some pictures, and we're off! Kind of a trial run, I guess. "Here take him out for a test drive, see how he handles, and let us know tomorrow if you are interested!" From the adoption center we headed back to the hotel, our guide left her phone number if we had any issues and that was it! Now we have this small person staying w/us, entrusting his well being to us completely and we don't even speak ihis language.

Well, it's too cold out (about 40 degrees) to take any kind of lengthy walk. Fortunately there is the staple of American fast food down the street from our hotel. Here is little man getting his first taste of McDonalds:

Yes, we are happy to announce that Denise was able to train Nate in the fine art of fry dunking in ketchup! Also, he is not a huge fan of their hamburgers (which is actually a good thing, since their diets don't consist of a lot of meet, evidently).

And across from the McDonalds what do we have? You know it, none other than Sam Walton's contribution to the reduction of small business, Wal-Mart! A vertical one @that!

This isn't the picture for it, this one was taking out of the window of a high speed van, but you get the gist. We're actually @Wal-Mart looking for a hoodie or fleece for me because I had failed to pack one for the trip and things have been a might bit chilly for a North Face jacket and short sleeves. However, Nate had other plans! He's able to let Denise know that he has to go potty, but it's almost instantaneous. Know mind you, the standard here for children is layers, regardless of outside temparature. When we picked up Nate he had on, in order from inside to out, pajamas, a pair of quilted-type overalls, lightweight snow pants, a sweater, and a winter jacket! The "accident" (#1) nailed the pajamas, overalls, and snow pants. So it was a quick stop @ Wal-Mart and back to the hotel to change and get cleaned up and off to bed w/a book a Ma-Ma