OUR TRIP

Gary and Michelle

Sunday August 24th - Changsha, China

8:10pm... The babies are here!!!

The babies are here! A bit of a rush forward occurs when you can barely hear Mr. Smile Cuo read the babies' names off of their identity cards.

Mara and Kyra were near the last to be announced. There they were, even dressed alike. We immediately took a picture of the gals with their nannies. What happened to their hair?? Mara got a haircut and Kyra's was filling in. We had to make sure by their identity cards but as soon as we saw their faces, we knew it was them.

Gary took Mara in his arms first. Then Kyra went to Michelle. Henry was dutifully capturing every moment on tape. The girls were hot and sweaty. We can only imagine what kind of hot ride they had to get here - it's 36¼C here.

The girls were so behaved and loved our cuddling. No fussing at all. In fact only a couple of the babies were heard crying at all.

By about 9pm, all the families had retreat to their rooms. We were the last stragglers, taking our time.

Kyra has a bit of a cough and Mara is fine. Kyra seems slightly bigger than Mara, contrary to our referral photos. They even look more alike. Eventually, we change them into Pampers and new clothes and we try to feed them their formula. Only Kyra has any formula and Mara only wants to be with Gary.

Eventually Kyra falls asleep with her bottle in her mouth and Mara does the same, only in Daddy's arms while he's snoozing too.

We put them both to bed by 11pm and we go to sleep ourselves... We can hear the gentle breathing of the two girls whistling in the room.

This is the start of our forever family and we are so happy to share this with you all.

Friday August 22nd - Mutianyu - Beijing, China

This morning, we went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu, a lesser travelled location about two hours Northeast of Beijing. On the way, in Shunyi district, Gary spotted some brightly coloured fabric being displayed in a large vacant lot. It was a kite market! Yes, a kite market. "Stop the car, there's half an acre of kites for us to peruse!" Needless to say, we did not leave this kite market unscathed and ended up getting some nice kites and reels.

The Great Wall was fabulous! We took a gondola to an elevation of over 600 metres (according to our GPS). This was a spectacular location with very few tourists - we probably only saw fewer than 30 people on the wall. (Most tour groups go to Badaling which is only one hour directly North of Beijing). The temperature was so hot and humid and there wasn't even a whisper of wind (so much for flying a kite on the Great Wall). The sections that we climbed and clambered, were done so as if we were travelling in a blazing sauna. Only our trip to Bangkok last year has been hotter. Sweat was dripping from our brows and down our back. Not a pretty sight.

After leaving the Mutianyu, we had Northern dumplings for lunch in a resort city called Huarou. Our guide ordered so many dishes of dumplings that we were stuffed to the gills. The two hour drive back to Beijing felt like five hours with the heavy traffic, poor sections of road, radiant heat through the car windows, and after-big-lunch sleepiness.

Michelle and Gary