Saturday, March 20, 2010

Trip back

 

Some shots of our long trip back. Also shots of  Kathie, Ella Jiao and QiuLi in the spectacular new Beijing airport. Trip was hard and long and chaotic on all legs of the flight. I learned some new things though: for instance, the typical economy seat will hold up to an inch of standing water for around 15 minutes before starting to absorb into the cushion below.

 

Late Monday night – when QiuLi landed in Chicago, she became an American citizen. Also a couple of pictures of our arrival in the Austin Bergstrom Airport and Ella Jiao showing QiuLi some of her toys.

 

We’ve now been back for several days, are all still suffering a lot from jetlag. Yesterday, Kathie and I were outside in the yard for the first time with the girls as they played in the outdoor playhouse – it was great to be outside and Jiao Jiao and QiuLi appeared to really enjoy playing outside. Kathie and I were just sitting in the sun for a minute and I was telling her something and realized I wasn’t getting her attention. She was preoccupied with a phone to her ear and appeared to be on hold – I got her attention and pointed out that that she could put it down and listen to me because it was just a play phone that QiuLi had handed to her. This is a parable of our week.

 

Posted by Tom

 

 

 

last day in china

 

Our last day in China: we had lunch and went to the area of Guilin close to the orphanage.  A lot of the residents of the this part of town work or have worked for the railroad.

 

Later in the day, we got on a plane and flew to Beijing where we spent the night and caught the long flight home the next day. In the airport, we bid farewell to Bing, our guide, who did a really great job and was really wonderful to us, the orphanage staff, and to everyone we met.

Posted by Tom

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Some shots of our long trip back. Also shots of  Kathie, Ella Jiao and QiuLi in the spectacular new Beijing airport. Trip was hard and long and chaotic on all legs of the flight. I learned some new things though: for instance, the typical economy seat will hold up to an inch of standing water for around 15 minutes before starting to absorb into the cushion below.

 

Late Monday night – when QiuLi landed in Chicago, she became an American citizen. Also a couple of pictures of our arrival in the Austin Bergstrom Airport and Ella Jiao showing QiuLi some of her toys.

Posted by Tom

 

 

 

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Visit to QiuLi's Orphanage

We're in Guilin where QiuLi's orphanage is, arrived here 2 days ago. We
are about to travel back to states via Beijing and will be leaving in a few
hours. So we're just posting a couple of shots from the last 2 days and hope
to post more later.
These are pictures of QiuLi seeing her orphanage school teachers. They
shrieked when they saw her -- apparently she was popular. Posted by Tom

Visit to QiuLi's Orphanage

At the orphanage we met QiuLi's foster father. It was great to meet him and
he was very kind to us and to her.

Visit to QiuLi's Orphanage

Shots of the orphanage, Jiao Jiao and QiuLi playing on QiuLi's familiar
playground. Posted by Tom

Tour of the Li River near Guilin, Guangxi Province, home of QiuLi's orphanage

Tour of Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo County where Qiuli was likely born.

Tour of the Li River near Guilin, Guangxi Province, home of QiuLi's orphanage