Hopefully We Return With One Baby and Two Kidneys
 

We got our travel approval yesterday and we head to China in a week. We're going to fly out Wed. the 22nd and we should get to pick up our baby on the 28th. Our return flight brings us home on April 8th.

If anyone has any travel tips for China I'd love to hear them. We're going to do 2-3 days in Beijing first to sightsee and then go to Chongqing to the orphanage and finally go to Guangzhou for our consulate appointment.

Good luck and congrats.

Be sure to bring a respirator while in Beijing....

no tips for you but a hearty congrats to both of you. May your baby bring you happiness and may you love him/her with all the love you can :)

FM

Highlights in Beijing include Tianamen square (you can see Mao's encased body), and the Forbiden City (get the tour tape when you buy the tickets ... it's narrated by Roger Moore, i kid you not). You can also take a trip out to the Great Wall from Beijing. It's probably easier (and fairly cheap) to just hire a cab for the day as your personal driver. If you stay at a decent hotel, ask them for advice.

As far as getting around, assuming you stay at an English speaking hotel, always ask the desk person or the concierge to write in Chinese characters your destination before you go anywhere. That way if you take a cab, or get lost, you can present the characters to get directions. Of course, you won't be able to understand the directions, but at least they can point/drive you.

Congrats JPhillips! Good luck on the trip, and take lots of pictures to post when you get back :)

Congrats and have a safe trip. :)

Congratulations, JPhillips!

Good luck with your trip and adoption JPhillips!

Wow!, and congratulations. My wife and I adopted a little princess from South Korea a little under two years ago, and I cannot begin to tell you the joy she has brought to our lives. There is absolutely not a day, more like hour that doesn't go by without me thinking how did I become so blessed!

We are in the process of adopting a little boy from South Korea as well and hope for travel clearance by July. Get ready for some awesome times with your new little one, and be prepared for your heart to be stolen like you could not imagine.:)

God bless you and your family! You will be in our prayers.

Mo

All: Thanks for the good wishes. Our friends and family have been extremely important supporters through this almost two year journey.

Mo: Good luck. We were torn between China and Korea and in the end China seemed a little better fit. If we adopt again we're talking about a boy from Korea, but it will be a few years before we can afford this again!

Only two kidneys? Are you and the wife each planning on selling one over there? ;)

Congrats on the kiddo and be sure to have a safe trip! :)

no reason to go sell one over there, they should ping one of the guys posting all the time in the drunk guy thread ;)

FM

I don't get the two kidneys part either, shouldn't they return with six kidneys if everything goes well? :confused:

Damn! I forgot to work the baby into the joke! :o

It's two kidneys per person. Its been a long running joke for us that we could sell our kidneys in China if we didn't have enough money for the orphanage. Hopefully we do and we won't have to leave any organs behind.

Congrats JPhillips! I love it when people adopt, you are my hero.

I've been to Beijing three times and love it. I don't have a lot of tips for gettign around because my wife is from there and that makes it much easier to navigate. Taxis are dirt cheap, but don't expect the driver to speak any English so try to get someone to write down your destination in Chinese. You absolutely have to have Peking Duck at least once in Beijing -- its one of the best foods I've ever experienced and you can't duplicate it outside of Beijing.

Off the top of my head here is a list of destinations in or near Beijing:

Summer Palace / Suzhou Street
Forbidden City
Hutongs (traditional Beijing residential areas... should be able to find them near Forbidden City)
Great Wall at Badaling
Tiananmen Square
Ming Tombs
Beijing Zoo (lots of pandas) and Taipingyang Underwater World
Beihai Park

I've never been to Guangzhou, but I hear they have great seafood.

JPhillips-Thanks! We originally planned on China also, but the two to three week stay and our jobs prevented us. The wait is a killer isn't it? It took us 22 months to welcome our little Korean princess home. I also know what you mean about the expense. We are still trying to recover from the first adoption and the second is just a step of faith. Home equity loan here we come:) . My wife and I can't wait to see your trip report.

We're hoping to post updates to my wife's blog during the trip. If you're interested its:

http://whiddenphillipsadoption.blogspot.com