We arrived home on Sunday afternoon. Our little guy is doing pretty well. I’m just not sure if his nighttime waking schedule is because of jet-lag or his usual routine. He has been going to bed about 7pm the last two nights, waking up in the middle of the night for a bottle (somewhere between 10pm and 2am), then getting up for the day about 4:45am. Yes, I said 4:45am. I need to push his bedtime back an hour or two, but he is so tired at 7pm, it’s difficult to keep his eyes open. And I don’t want him to be overly tired when I put him to bed.
He did pretty well on the plane ride home, too, sleeping in the bassinet for about 6-8 hours of our flight. When we arrived in Newark, we had to stay overnight in a hotel because our connecting flight was not until Sunday. He was awake most of that night, but I kind of expected that. We did have a travel snafu in Newark. Because we had changed our plans to get an earlier flight home, the Continental flight was changed as well. But the Continental computer system was not showing that our tickets with EVA had been synchronized and re-issued. So the supervisor at the check-in counter was telling us, in his oh-so-friendly New Jersey accent, that we did not have tickets and could not get on that flight. Fortunately, we had contacted our travel agent about this possible problem before going to the airport and he was able to get it straightened out with Continental.
Here are a few photos from the journey home . . .
Sweet dreams in bassinet on plane
Sitting in Daddy's seat on the flight home. . .he's a good traveler!
Good news! We have our son’s visa – AIT told us it would not be ready until Monday but we asked if there was any way we could pick it up today. They called us a little before 2pm and said we could get it today if we came before 3:30pm. Yippee! That means we can get a flight out on Saturday night rather than waiting until Monday. We miss our other kids so much and cannot wait to see them.
Today we had lunch at the infamous Din Tai Fung Restaurant. They are known for their dumplings and they did not disappoint. They were so busy we were seated at a table with three women on holiday from Hong Kong. (It seemed like a few other tables had people seated together that did not know each other.) They told us they love the dumplings so much they come there each time they visit Taiwan. We waited about 30 minutes to be seated. While waiting for a table, the hostess takes orders so when you finally are seated, your food is ready almost immediately. Very efficient service, and delicious!
Dining at Din Tai Fung
Before we leave tomorrow we hope to return to the Taiwan Handicraft Mart to buy a few souvenirs, and also visit the weekend Jade Market.
Backtracking a bit, I wanted to fill you in a bit on our day at St. Lucy’s Center and meeting our son for the first time.
Our agency’s in-country coordinator was scheduled to meet us at our hotel in Tainan about 9:30am. We called her to check-in and make sure everything was still on schedule at St. Lucy’s. She told us on the phone then that the birthmom was going to be at the orphanage to meet us. I was already nervous, and hearing that just made the butterflies in my stomach a bit more intense. We had brought a gift for our son’s birthmother but did not expect to meet her.
There is no way we would have been able to direct a taxi to St. Lucy’s. For families who go there on their own, without someone with their agency, kudos for finding that place and not getting lost. It seemed like the roads (more like alley ways) kept getting smaller and smaller and we kept making turns.
We went to the meeting room upstairs. I gave one of the caregivers the outfit we had chosen for our son – a UVA onesie, shorts and a socks. The clothes fit, but just barely. I think I guessed his size pretty well, with both his clothes and the diapers we bought.
They brought him to us about 10 minutes later. It felt like it was taking forever. I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him. The caregivers at St. Lucy’s said he is reserved. . .I would call him Mr. Serious. He came to me easily and seemed pretty unemotional about all that was going on. It wasn’t until later when another caregiver came in to feed and play with him that we really saw his personality emerge. That was a relief – it seems he had really bonded with this particular caregiver and we were pleased to see him laughing and playing.
After playing with him, we were given a tour of St. Lucy’s. We were not allowed to go into the nurseries, but could look in through the windows. The nurse took our son back into the nursery and took some photos of him in his crib for us. We had also taken a matte with us which we asked his caregivers to sign (thanks, Judy, for that wonderful idea). We will take it home with us and frame it with a photo we have of the caregivers holding him.
After we ate some lunch, the birthmom came in with a friend. It was an emotional meeting. We learned that she is originally from Hualien, and we were able to tell her we had visited that area on our trip and that was our favorite part of Taiwan. We are so grateful for the time we spent with her. We have some wonderful photos of her with our son, as well as all four of us together. I will treasure those photos and look forward to sharing them with our son when he is older.
Good morning! We had a good first night with our little man. We were told he eats every four hours, even at night. So I was pleased when he went to bed about 9pm after finishing his bottle, and slept through until about 6am. He may have slept longer, but I wanted to go ahead and wake him up so we would not be rushed getting to our Visa appointment at the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT).
When we get home, I intend to post reviews of all of the hotels where we have stayed on this trip. For this part of our trip, we are staying at the Park Taipei Hotel. It’s a new hotel, open since June. We chose this hotel because it is only about an 8-minute walk to AIT. It’s near two MRT (subway) stations, too.
Our AIT appointment went smoothly. We met two other adoptive families this morning: W8tn4#2&3 and Searching for Janie. Our little guy looks huge compared to their babies. It was nice to talk to other Americans and hear about their adoption experiences.
It was a wonderful day. We found out just a few minutes before going to the orphanage that our son’s birthmother would be coming to meet us. I had known that was a possibility but did not think it would actually happen. I will post more about our special day later but wanted to go ahead and post a few pictures of our first meeting.
In celebration of our big day tomorrow, we went to dinner at the New Asia Teppanyaki Restaurant at the Tayih Landis Hotel in Tainan. Excellent service, wonderful food, a little expensive, but we figure we should take advantage of this time to enjoy a special dinner, just the two of us. . . and it will be a while until we visit Asia again and experience this type of culinary expertise.
One of six restaurants at Tayih Landis Hotel in Tainan, Taiwan
In a land where idols are worshipped on what seems like every corner, we will give praise to the one True and Living God. We pray for the people of Taiwan, to know Jesus and accept His free gift of salvation.
Dave and I met up with an online friend, Amanda, for dinner tonight in Tainan. Dinner was delicious…she ordered three Chinese dishes and we ate family-style for dinner. The food tasted more like Chinese food we are used to eating at home…all very delicious.
Our dinner at the DuDu Cafe
Strollers at RT Mart in Tainan
As many of you know, we are traveling light on this journey and hoped to buy many of the baby items we need while here in Taiwan. Amanda was kind enough a few weeks ago to visit a few stores and price the strollers for me. She found some strollers at RT Mart for about $30 USD. After dinner tonight, We went with Amanda to RT Mart to buy a stroller for our son – it’s just a basic umbrella-type stroller. We had also seen a couple of strollers at the Carrefour store in the Tienmu area of Taipei, for about the same price. There was a larger selection of strollers at this RT Mart, though. The cheapest stroller at SOGO Department Store in Taipei was about $100 USD, but they were much fancier than what we need.
We have just arrived in Tainan. Our original plans were to take a train from Hualien around the southern part of Taiwan to Tainan. But the typhoon that hit Taiwan last month damaged the railway in some sections and the Railway Administration was predicting months before the train would be able to travel that route. So we decided to return to Taipei via train then transfer to the High Speed Rail for our trip to Tainan. It took about three hours on the train and one hour, 45 minutes on the high speed rail. This is where our son is living in an orphanage. We will meet him on Thursday. Our adoption agency has arranged a half-day tour of Tainan on Wednesday, and we are looking forward to dinner tonight with a friend who lives here.
On the 8am train to Taipei from Hualien
A look inside the high speed rail car (business class)
Dave with the Uni Lions mascot at Tainan HSR station
It is not possible to capture the beauty of Taroko Gorge in photos. I have never seen anything quite like it – if I had to compare it to something, I would say it’s a mix of the Grand Canyon and the Big Island of Hawaii. Our hotel hired a driver to take us on a half-day tour of Taroko National Park. The park entrance is about 30 minutes north of Hualien. We were in awe of the enormous cliffs and beautiful marble rock formations throughout the park. Here are a few photos – once I upload the photos to our flickr account I’ll post a link on our blog.
Hualien Coastline
View from hotel to the west
Dave on a trail at Taroko Gorge
Cindy on Taroko Gorge Trail
Dave on one of the foot bridges
A temple high up on the mountainside
We fought our way through a swarm of killer bees --just kidding - no killer bees spotted on this outing!
- no killer bees spotted on this outing!
