Last Full Day in Chengdu City, Faith's Birthplace

Today is our last day in Chengdu City so we took it easy. I let Brian and Faith sleep in until about 8:30. Before we traveled Brian downloaded Tango on his phone and we haved used that with the web cam to talk with the boys each morning and night. A few times we haven't been able to at night since Faith is asleep. We enjoy seeing them and it is fun to see them interact with Faith. We did our usual talk with the boys and then went to breakfast. Afterwards I wanted to get some good pictures of the area of Chengdu where we are staying; so we walked around and took pictures. I only let Brian take us about a couple of blocks on either side of our hotel. I didn't want to venture out too far without our guide. We stopped at a Starbucks and sat outside for a while. Faith was happy sitting in her own chair playing with my reciept. She is easily entertained! We went to the Walking Street for a minute and then headed back to the room. I honestly get tired of all the staring. Some people will do the double take, then some are rude and give us ugly looks and then some just stand and stare us up and down letting us know they don't approve. We just smile and go on about our merry way. There are a few sweet people that stop and talk to Faith. It is kinda funny, if you speak to her first, she will just raise her brows and look at you, but if you don't pay her attention she will wave and smile. It has to be on her terms :) She tends to like the young women more. There aren't as many children adopted from Chengdu so I guess they are not as familiar with seeing foreigners caring for one of "their" children. We found out today Faith is the 55th child adopted from the Sichuan province for 2011. 55 is not alot! That means maybe only 30 or 40 of those are from Chengdu (the capital and largest city in Chengdu). I am ready to head to Guangzhou tomorrow. Every family adopting from China has to go through here to the Embassy. So we will get to talk with other families and we will not be looked at as much! Yeah! The people here are very well dressed. They take pride in themselves and you rarely see anyone overweight. The women really like shoes. As much walking as they do here you would think they would wear comfortable shoes but no, heels with boots are very popular. I have only seen a few people wearing blue jeans. They are already in full winter gear; coats, gloves, and the kids wear hats. After our walk we came back to the room and played. During play time Faith started dancing. I had been trying to get her to and she would just bounce but today she started copying some women on the TV doing traditional Chinese dances. We danced around the room like the women on TV. She was giggling and having a blast. I suppose it reminds her of the dancing her FM and their friends do at night in the park for excerise. Brian headed on over to good ole' McDonalds to pick up lunch. Next was a nap for Faith while I caught up the Blog. Meanwhile Brian had to go with Louise to pick up the final paperwork. When we went to finalize the adoption on Friday, but the office didn't give us our final papers because they were so busy. Friday was Singles day! If you want to get Married or Divorsed you go on Fridays. So they are very busy at the office. After Brian got back we went over some paperwork with Louise. For dinner, we picked up take out at a chicken place, Red Hat/Dicos. It was pretty good! Then we went to the Sichuan Opera House. We watched an hour long show...kinda like a variety show. It included gong and drum music, dramatic play about a love story, stick puppet show, erhu solo (some instrument), comedic play where a guy balance an oil lamp, hand shadow show, changing faces, and opera solo. At first Faith seemed a little scared of the loud noises but calmed down and was able to enjoy the show, dancing and clapping in our laps. At the end, the performers threw masks out and Brian caught one for Faith to have as a keep sake. A taxi ride back to the hotel, bottle and bed! Tomorrow we are leaving Chengdu City.
Faith is attached to her Daddy! I don't blame her, he is pretty awesome! She cries every time he leaves or walks far away from us. He has had to do most of the carrying while we are out so she has had a lot of face time with him. Today in the hotel lobby, he walked away to go talk with someone at the counter. I was going to wait for him by the elevators. She started yelling, "Mama, Mama!" at Brian. Everyone looked at us. I quickly walked over to him. I guess we will have to get the whole Mama/Dada straight pretty soon. I think we confused her by switching the Baba for Dada. I have never left her but I am pretty sure she wouldn't cry as hard for me. I have really enjoyed seeing him with a little girl. Just melts my heart!
It is common for families to visit a child's finding spot. This is where the mother left the child to be found. In Faith's paperwork it does not tell of the exact spot just the street name...this street is very long so there is no way to tell the exact street. We just know it was close to the orphange. We do know that someone found her and took her to the police station. They then took her to the orphange. The orphange gave us a copy of her Finding Ad which Louise read to us. A Finding Aid is run in the local newspaper with a picture and where the child was found. This is run for so many days before they proceed to place the child for adoption. Faith was born in May and her ad ran in June. They wait until they have 5-6 babies before they run the ads. Before traveling we paid for the services of Brian Stuy. He will find your child's finding aid for you, translate it and send you a copy of the newspaper from the day she was born. We have't receive the packet from him yet.
Brian has put some pics on Facebook and on here. Once we are settled tomorrow I hope to put some new ones on here. Our photography opinions are so different.
On the way to the orphange on Gotcha Day, our guide gave us a quick review of the common words to know for adopting a chinese child:
Mama
Dada Baba
Bye Bye Zeijain
I love you Wo Ai Ni
daughter Nu Ere
baby Baobao
hug Baoba
water /Shuy
hello Ni Hao
thank you Xiexie