if i were naive enough to describe china with one word it would have to be, powerful. this is not a country or race to be taken lightly. example; i have been to one steel mill in my life. aside from the size and strength of it, it still seemed managable. you could walk it in say, an hour. 2 kms worth of indoor production seems quite impressive. what do you think the chinese did to a steel mill that stood on some prime land? demolish? no. how bout we take this steel plant, and ship it to another province? smelters and all. that is power. why would you do that? well, in 2008, the olymipics are coming to beijing and we cant have any smoke from blast furnaces polluting the air with the whole world watching now, can we? it has been said that china has been advancing at an alarming rate and they have not been taking care of the environment and that may be true but, and it is a big but, they would be the ones that would have the power to clean it up if they so chose. it is just amazing to me how much construction and expansion is happening here. they are suffering from a sort of "more is better" attitude that is, no doubt, coming from the western influences. there is a sort of reversal of roles happening that is kind of ironic. when everyone is starting to see the merit of eastern philosophies and ways of life back home, over here they want money and development to be at the forefront with all they do and that sometimes means advancment at a cost, human or other. i hope they dont self destruct in the process because i believe both our cultures have a lot to learn from each other. more us, than them. i cant say i'm too impressed with what i saw today tho. --- we went to silk alley today which was a sort of 6 story marche aux puces with anything and everything for sale. from knock off nikes to knock off Louis Vitton bags. Key word, knockoffs. i dont know how big it was but there must be thousands of employees in thousands of little shops hawking you-name-it. some of the stuff actually showed some quality but after 2 hours of walking around this place it was too much. think of all of las vegas' slots compacted into one building and you get the picture. even my pro-shopper of a wife said enuf was enuf at one point. it's not the "stuff" so much as all the clerks shoving some fake Timberland shoe under your nose saying "Fo yo, zpechal priz! supa kwalitry" then you turn the corner and facing you are 50 more hawkers, salivating at your non-asian eyes. how do you buy anything in this environment? well, loyal readers, i will tell you. you take a deep breathe, ignore whoever is infront of you and pick something. then, you turn to the nearest hawker who has offered you 22 versions of Puma sneakers and you ask how much. what ever his answer is you cut down 95%. no joke here kids. then when he scoffs, and he will scoff, they all scoff. whatever his reply, you say no and simply walk away. at that point he has put your purchase in a bag and says, "ok, yoo too tuf fo me" or some-such and you give him the 10 yuan($1.15) and walk away with the bag. after a while, alana and i just retreated to the bus and watched the world go by. much more sanity in that activity. we also visited a silk factory which was very interesting. did you know they can get 1500 meters of silk thread from one bug cucoon? and they developed a machine to harvest the threads. talk about a human to bug interface! --- did i mention how i am amazed at how north americans come over here and just "expect" to be understood. helloooooooo? english is a foreign language????? rant over. wait, wasnt i the one looking for a bathroom a few days ago? har har.

did i mention i cant see my own blog? please see Macleans magazine of last week or the week before. there is an article on the "new" china. some things are new, some are not. there are a few issues with people over here slandering the gov with their blogs and so, i'm only able to view the posting page of my own blog. i can at least do that. due to this slightly annoying fact, i am unable to see if anyone has left me any comments. guess i'll see them at home. i have been getting some nice emails which really helps me remind myself that this is only temporary. writing the blog does that too. it's a nice distraction from playing gagagoogoo all day long. i dont know how carol is going to do it for a year. when i do get back, i will post the pictures that are relevant to each entry so that you can see what it looked like. --- you will have to forgive me as my brain is jello right now and i have been fighting alana's first "gift" to me since we got here. its getting better tho. --- as i mentioned this morning, we went to the jade factory yesterday (or was it the day before?) and the intricacies of the carvings were magnificent. carol and i were out of control and spent some fric. i bought this one piece that is called an Eternity Ball or Happiness Ball that has 6 spheres of jade inside. think of 2 mirrors facing eachother and you will sort of get it. i will study this thing for days and not be able to understand how it was made. we all know how i admire craftsmanship and that's exactly why i bought it. pure showmanship in a piece of rock. btw, alana was sleeping all thru the jade factory so i can go on with my story. actually, i cant go on with my story because my girls are here once again to pick me up to go have supper this time. more to follow.

as per the law's of one Murphy, our flight to Beijing got delayed. how nice. we got on and werent even sitting down and the pilot starts rolling towards the runway! ride'em cowboy! we managed to get buckled in before take off and alana was really having fun! she really loves to travel. in the stroller, in my arms, on a bus, it's all good. i guess she likes wheels. my kinda girl. I bet she likes convertibles. all the way over to Beijing we were practicing our standing. she very much likes to stand and does it quite well tho the balance thing is a little tough. the pace of this trip is a little too quick for kids. we are being rushed and bused all around and it is kinda hard to get a solid nap in a snugli. yesterday we went to the Great Wall. We probably should have waited a day to go just to let the kids rest up. It's cold in them thar hills! quite magnificent. i dont know how they did it but a lot of slaves must have died. there is a plaque commemorating their sacrifice. alana was quite enthusiastic about it all. she likes to look far but once i put my foot on the first step, she fell asleep and started snoring. only pictures can tell this part of the story so i will have to let them do the talking.


well my two girls just showed up to pick me up for breakfast so gotta go. next installment; JADE.

hello all, thanks for the emails. it's nice to hear from home. we're still in Nanchang and i have some time to kill so i thought i'd jot a line or two. we take off for beijing at 4pm. i still dont know if i'm coming or going. i just follow orders like a good husband! nudge-nudge-wink-wink. carol is napping right now with alana and had a little bit of mummy blues this morning. she is kinda tired cuz alana decided she wanted a snack at 2 this morning! i fell back asleep but carol didnt. welcome to parenthood! but you know, alana has this really gentle cry, she doesnt wail at all! its absolutely heart breaking. the only time she complains is when we wipe her snotty little nose, she doesnt like that at all! she lets out this loud NAAAAA! and then stops just as quickly as she started. i can make her laugh pretty easily and i just give her a tummy raspberry and she gives me a solid smile and a single HA!. her reactions are truly reserved. whether laughing or crying or babbling. she did start to imitate me by shaking her head left and right! it's so cute. i go "no no no" and she shakes her head "no no no". we did a group picture of the 8 little girls in our group and she just sat there without so much as a peep. this is a little worrisome. she is easy to go with strangers and does not put up a fuss. i guess it will take some time before she shows any stranger anxiety. --- yesterday was interesting. we were like rock stars!! we went shopping at a sort of pedestrian street that is popular with the locals.
all kinds of tiny little shops with more staff than they really need. a little 500 sq ft shop will have 10 employees! i guess when you have 1.3 BILLION people, they gotta do something. anyway, we walk into this place, kinda like Urban Outfitters without the fancy displays. we are immediately "attacked" by these 16 year old sales girls who almost started to fight over who would serve us! after one of them won us, she followed us with a trail of her coworkers who were pointing at me pushing a baby carriage. carol had bought a bunch of post cards from the dollar store back home and i open my pouch and handed a couple out and you should have seen the commotion this caused! it was hilarious! so i'm shopping around for stuff and our "designated" clerk was asking me to try stuff on. ok, i take off my jacket to try on one of theirs and this caused another wave of giggles. geez. wasnt sure if they were laughing AT me or WITH me! musta been my middle aged physique. oi. anyway, i pick out a few things and my clerk would sprint to the cash and come back to see if i was interested in anything else. BTW, alana was sleeping thru all the brouhaha and blaring techno-elevator-rock-classical-jazz-music. what a circus! carol and i were in stitches. i tried to get a group shot of all the clerks but they all suddenly vanished at the sight of my camera. the manager told "our" clerk to do her duty so at least i got a picture of her.
i still know how to play a crowd! HAHA!

hello blog readers, alana has had a very nice morning at the police station today. you see, we obtained her official chinese passport! they issue them at the police stations. much more of a proffesional and organized place compared with the chinese adoption authority. they dont like it when you take pictures tho as this freaked out the guard that was on duty in front of the entrance. he started yelling at one of the moms in our group for taking a pic! yikes. everyone on the bus! then we spent a few hours on "porcelain street" picking out, dustables. mummy was very happy and daddy was very impressed with the workmanship and prices(cheap!). there are 4 qualities for buying porcelain, 1) it must be white as jade, the best jade is white 2) it must be thin like paper 3) it must sing like a chime and i forget the fourth one. i'll update later. everyone is doing much better and the colds are almost gone. thank god. we have made it thru the first week very well and alana is just an angel. she eats 5, 8 ounce, bottles a day plus whatever snacks we might put in front of her. except for fruits, yucky. baby mummums are a big hit. especially when sharing with mummy. we got a message from carol's dad wishing her a happy birthday and i know there was a phone call from someone but we were out cold at 8 last night. sorry. i do access my email account if anyone wants to send a message jimspyridakis(at)gmail(dot)com.
so our time in Nanchang has come to an end and we will be leaving for Beijing in the morning and my next entry should be from there. at least our baggage limit will double. let the shopping begin!

hi folks, had a great day today and once again the little girl is just a trooper. we went to see a pagoda(sp) that was built by a prince to amuse himself. 6 stories tall and all full of incredible detail. on the sixth floor there was a performance by some local musicians and dancers and alana slept thru all of it. she is just amazing. so easy, so demure, doesnt complain one bit. she really is making it easy on us. she laughs and babbles so much! we are all fighting off the cold or whatever she gave us and for carol's birthday today i'm sending her down to the spa for a massage to help fight off the muscle aches the three of us are experiencing. great hotel! gotta go, love to all!

alana is making it so easy for us. as long as her basic needs are being met, there is no problem! she loves to laugh and talk! she calls for dada all the time and it has it's designated effect. we spent the day shopping yesterday in a large department store about the size of downtown MTL Eatons. we bought some 3 pairs of kids shoes for 25$us(probably expensive) and alana couldnt care less. she slept the whole time. it is a rarity for a man to be pushing a carriage around here and i got more than my fair share of looks and glances. the grannies were particularly interested in us and alana and they all approved of her attire for the day which was dutifully inspected. we have the general approval of the chinese grandmas. the agency warned us, before we left, that if alana was not properly dressed we would face the scorn of grandmas in the street and they were right. you should have seen the scene we created while asking the information booth where we might find a bathroom, washroom, wash closet, wash area, toilet etc. in about two minutes we had 2 dozen people surrounding us and scratching their heads! it was hilarious! alana was cooing the audience and then we ended up nixing the bathroom attempt due to her just falling asleep again. what a performance! as for shopping, the store we were in had authentic name brands so they were no bargains. in the street tho, you name it, they sell it. and cheap. how bout 500 mls of local Nanchang beer for 50 cents. it's pretty good too! we took a walk around the department store on the street so as to take some pictures and look around.

we see that, on the surface, the town is a busy decent looking city but if you venture just a little off the beaten path, it is scary. the town is just struggling to keep up with the explosion of economic growth and the battle is being lost. i guess thats what happens when 1.3 billion people are held back for centuries then let loose all of a sudden. according to our guide, China has been relatively free for only the last 25 years and there is aLOT of pent up energy in people. i should not generalize but i hope they dont self destruct. people are people anywhere. anyway, alana's rash is subsiding but carol is pretty ill today so we will be skipping the "tourism" today and just entertain our little girl. she is sweet as a dumpling and just as edible. yes, she is daddy's little girl. and i dont care who knows it.

she's absolutely beautiful!!!! we arrived in nanchang after a 2 hr flight on china air without much fanfare. 30 minutes on the bus and waiting in the lobby were a dozen little babies all dressed in the same pink and yellow outfits. we were asked to go straight to our rooms and meet later in a designated conference room! ugh. 5 hours to vancouver, 12 hours to beijing, overnight and 2 hrs to nanchang and we couldnt pick up our little girls until we were all in the "official" meeting room. why have them in the lobby when we're walking in???!!! it was pretty torturous to some of the mommies just coming off the bus. so, we go to our rooms, wait a little while and go down to a hastily prepared room to find the babies dressed in 4 layers of clothes, winter clothes no less, and were presented with our little girls.
they were all surprisingly plump! not what we were expecting at all. we signed some temporary custodial papers that would allow us to take the girls under our care until the "official" papers were prepared and signed. it was a surreal experience. imagine 12 little faces peering up at total strangers dressed with so many layers they looked like over stuffed teddy bears. it is customary to over dress babies in china and if you dont, be prepared to face the scorn of any chinese granny who might be seeing your depraved parenting skills. if they are sweating, it is good. alana is a godsend. she was actually not from an orphanage but from a foster home. she was loved, you can tell. she is so well behaved. she hardly complains, she has a gentle cry. she loves to talk! she even says "dada"! i melted. boy she can eat! she loves to laugh and tells us right away when something is wrong. we truly are blessed. she's so much fun. today, we spent the day doing the official stuff and unloaded a WHOLE lot of $$$. the chinese center of adoption whatever gave us the stamp of approval, took our picture and money and then we were off to the notary to get the whole thing... notarized. i just sign where i'm told to and put my faith in our 2 guides. mrs. chuang is our agency guide and monica is our local guide. the whole affair, and it was an "affair", went on for 2 or 3 hours and i can say that by the looks of the people running this government office, there is a fine line between official and clandestine. anyway, it got done and from a pile, they gave us a little vase and passport type document that is our official adoption certificate. done. on with the fun. alana just loves to play and she is STRONG. she can lift her head right up off the bed and look around. she cant quite sit up on her own. we gotta work this girl out! oh my god can she eat!
semi solids too. there were 2 problems tho. first she has a cold. and so do all the other little girls. not a big deal. the other is that she has a very bad diaper rash. carol thought is was an inflamation of her barthalemew glands due to the symmetrical nature of the pimples but the other 2 docs in our group disagreed. so on with the cortisone creme and on with life. alana doesnt seem to mind! she has a full pharmacy and 3 physicians at her disposal and she couldnt care less. she probably got it from their "dressing" habits. sixteen layers, 30 degree room temps and a wet diaper are not condusive to a healthy skin. we immediately let her breathe! she loves tummy tickles. i'm having a blast. cant sleep worth a damn but having a blast anyway. so are alana and carol. last night was a little overwhelming by the profundity of it all but atavan helps. taking it easy tonight and just thought i'd touch base with you all. see you all soon.

hoping this turns out ledgible. we have arrived in China unscathed. as i type this it is 715 am and the computer i am on is only showing websites in Chinese so i dont know if you will be able to read this. anyway, the flight to Vancouver was delayed due to de icing for 1 hour. we had 2 to make our connectionand arrived in time. carol and i are doing well and all our bags and stroller found us well. we had been greeted at the airport by our Enfants du Monde reps and they took charge from then on. we are greatful for the efficient organisation of the organization. carol and I are well, we had a wonderful chinese supper but the baby bok choi and mushrooms dish was better at Montreal's Beijing! although, we had a garlic deep fried cod that would give Beijing's Salt and pepper squid a run for it's money! we managed to get a few hours sleep on the plane and in the rock hard hotel beds. today we fly south to Nanchang and will be meeting Alana at around 2 or 3 pm our time. unfortunately we dont think we will be able to send pictures due to the chinese Windows running at the hotel. thats it for now, keep well and we send our love.

we have gotten so many warm wishes from so many people that it is hard not to get caught up in the excitement. i have, i think, done a pretty good job of not expecting too much from this momentous occasion. i certainly have felt the (upcoming) pressure, but not so much of the anxiety of it. carol is, certainly, a trooper. she is a machine. she knows exactly where we will be and how many Yuan we'll need at any moment over the next 2 weeks. i have done what any good husband can do, stay out of her way and just hang on for the ride. i know how to do that. my biggest anxiety has to be of Alana not bonding or accepting us. we have gone to and read so many things over the last eighteen months that say the first 3 months are the most critical in an adopted child's attachment to the new parents that it is hard not to take it to heart.

of course, all that is written in the world has little bearing on what Alana will decide to do with us. but, it has to have some influence on how we are going to treat the first days of her life with us. if not, what does any of the work we have done over the last 2 years count for? she's had a hard enough ride, i am willing to give her the benefit of all that "common" knowledge even if she doesn't need it. yes, i am willing to face the scorn of family and friends for my daughter because 3 months of pain cannot compare to the "what if" after the fact. if that means alienating myself from others in my life, BFD. as long as she can have the chances she may or may not need is all that is important to us. consequences be damned. end rant.

sit down, shut up, hang on!

two to go, three to come back.

i guess i've been living in some state of denial, better yet, deferral. not that i was conscious of this deferral, of course, more like you know you have to paint the outside of the house before it snows but you put it off till october anyway. but now it's really getting close.

last week i went to pick up our tickets and for whatever reason, it kinda just struck me as... er... odd. using my best Matrix "Architect" voice;

"the door to the left, you don't go to china, you grow old, alone with your wife with very little use for that extra room and less for the tons of gifts she got at the shower. the door to the right, you go to china, meet this little munchkin, fall in love immediately, go through a mad rush of emotions, you grow old, having your heart broken and warmed a million times over and sort of live happily ever after.

YOU-ARE-GOING-TO-CHINA-AND-THERE-IS-ABSOLUTELY-NOTHING-YOU-CAN-DO-TO-STOP-IT."

maybe i shoulda done the blue pill, red pill ...