It's hard to believe that we are back from China and have another little boy!! There is so much to say and so many pictures to share. While we were overseas it was easier to create a Facebook group and invite people to check updates there as opposed to this blog- but now that we are home I want to get this blog caught up as well as everyone who isn't on Facebook and wasn't able to see our updates there!
We left for China on the 17th and arrived there (China time) late Saturday night on the 18th. It was quite the flight- a 14 hour flight to get to Bejing- a three hour layover where we had to pick up our luggage and re check everything, then another 3 hour flight to Chongqing, Ben's province. Cole was NOT loving the flight. He wasn't a total mess but he wouldn't sleep- he probably slept a total of 4 hours of the whole flight even though I tried my best to rock and bounce him! Thankfully, everyone was very friendly as we did laps around the plane :)
When we arrived we tried to put Cole down in the crib but he wouldn't have any of it- at that point it was 1am China time so we rocked him to sleep and we all slept until about 4am when he was up again and Dan did laps around the hotel with him. Little did we know but that would be what most of our time in China would look like with little Cole. The jet lag and lack of a familiar home definitely affected him more than we thought. Thankfully, Dan's dad, Larry, was AMAZING and would hang out with him during the early hours of the morning (aka 3:30/ 4am) so we could get some sleep. Jake adjusted so so well which we were so thankful for! He didn't love the food but it didn't really bother him. We brought lots of snacks and bought peanut butter and honey and ate mostly that for lunch or dinner if they needed some extra food. We also got Pizza a lot (even though in Chongqing they didn't know what pepperoni or plain cheese pizza was!) and we also ate at McDonald's :) There also was a Starbucks in both Chongqing and Guangzhou and that felt a little bit like home for us! And after the lack of sleep- we needed the coffee!
The Hotel in Chongqing was really nice and I LOVED the breakfast buffet. The spicy noodles and spring rolls were so good and their food by far was my favorite of our whole stay in China. There also are these large Panda statues outside the restaurant that Cole LOVED and he actually said "panda"- his first word while we were there! Everyone loves Cole, which we were warned about- American babies tend to be quite the celebrities in China and everyone wanted to take a picture of him and would come up to him and say "hi baby!" For the most part though, other than the other family staying with us to adopt their little girl, we were the only Americans around. And we for sure felt that! Everyone stared at us everywhere we went.
Probably the other biggest cultural shock when we arrived was the Wal Mart. Everyone said not to worry because there was a Wal Mart we could buy things at, however this definitely was not like the Wal Mart here in the states! There was a lot of raw meat and fish - which was a smell I wasn't used to! Not much was labeled in English so it was so nice we had a guide there to help us out and direct us where the basics like milk and peanut butter were. Overall, we adjusted well the first few days. Really, we were just excited to meet our little guy! I will share more about that in our next post! For now, here are the pictures from our first couple days in China!
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