Hangzhou...

Well Blogspot seems to have eaten my earlier posts, so we'll give it another try and share all of our trip in Hangzhou all at one time, so here goes...

After all the excitement getting into Beijing (see Baba's first ever blog post about that adventure) and then to Hangzhou, we can consider our time in HZ somewhat uneventful (except for meeting our boy of course!)

We finallyy got in around 10pm on Sunday night (we left on Friday) and got a little shut eye befor the big day on Monday morning to meet Xuan.  One thing I forgot about was the beds of brick.  I'm sore in places I didn't know I had courtesy of the rock hard mattesses.

We met our guide at 9am and began our day.  First to the bank to exchnage USD for RMB, then over to Civil Affairs to meet Tristan.  As soon as we entered the meeting room we could see him sitting with his CWI director and his favorite ayi ( a nice young man).  He was immedicatly handed to Len (and didn't shed a tear) while I started the paperwork.  Paperwork was finished and when the Director and ayi departed, he began to cry.  It only lasted a bit and he calmed down.  We then off for our first ever family photo.  He had a good night at the hotel and slept almost thru the night and we began our new day together.  Back to Civial Affairs for more paperwork processing and a small presentation of our red adoption folder.

That afternoon we struck out on our two hour drive to Ningbo to file for his passport.  While we didn't anticipate being able to visit EnMei CWI, we were pleasantly surprised to be invited for a visit before our appointment at the Police Department for his passport. 

When we approached the gates of EnMei Tristan became very upset and climbed onto my lap for comfort.  While I hated to see him frightened, I was happy he sought us our for comfort.  We asked our guide to explain it was only a visit to see his friends and he seems ok with that.  We again saw the Int'l Adoption Director and his favorite ayi as well as the overall Director for the CWI.  We were able to visit with some of his friends (he was most happy to see DanQi - as soon as they saw each other they smiled, went to each other and held hands the entire time they were together).  We also got to see his class room and later went to a delicious lunch at a local restaurant hosted by the CWI.  Once all our official work was done it was back on the road for our two hour drive back to Hangzhou.

Tristan has been done very well.  For the first few days he didnt utter a solitary word.  But on Wed. as he sat on my lap he looked me square in the eye and in perfect English said "Hello".  He has the sweetest little sing-song voice.  He has also has a picture book of family, with our help he can say the names of his brothers, sisters, grandparents and his aunts, uncles and cousins.  For the first few days after waking, he would cry for a bit.  I don't know if that was more from waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, grieving or both.  That has pretty much stopped now.  He is a sweet little boy who will now pucker and give kisses.  Says mama and baba when he want our attention and loves to be carried.  Actually he's given up on walking and if we don;t pick him up on depand, he will drop to the group and throw a bit of a fit (ok more than a little bit).  He also won't ride in a coach.  Should be interesting when we get sister on Monday who has a leg condition and very well may need to be carried.

During our down time we spend it walking around the city to take in the local area as well as spending a couple afternoons at the beautiful West Lake.  One thing for certain, Hangzhou is a booming city.  Alot of young men and women are in the area, building is going on around the area and they had many highend stores such as Rolex, Lamborghini, Benz, etz.

On Sat. we we will head out to Guangzhou to start the second part of our journey.