Day 6 Shenyang and Dalian

Today was a hard day. We had to be up at 6 and have our luggage outside of the room at 7, into the van by 8:30 and then to the Civil Affairs office. I have never liked the legalistic part of adoption and we spent several hours this morning signing papers with signatures and thumbprints, waiting for absent officials and passing envelopes of cash around a huge table. There were 3 other families involved and they were all snapping pictures, but I just don't like this part of the process. Gage and I both had tummy aches during the endless sign-fest. I blame the hot pot, especially the stuff Gage was feasting on last night. One look at an octapus should tell you that it is not meant to be eaten.

After Civil Affairs, we were back into the van. AiJun (Gage) has a history of car sickness and the van ride just about finished him off. The bad news was that the van was taking us to an even longer trip which was the 4 hour bus ride to Dalian. Sure enough, poor AiJun was green just a few minutes into the trip and got very, very sick into the smallest motion sickness bag I  have ever seen. He actually felt better after that and slept most of the way to Dalian. I was especially sad since he is so thin and I was thrilled that he had eaten so much food yesterday and this morning. It was all too much for his poor little tummy.

We arrived in Dalian at about 4:30 and checked right in to the Ramada Inn. This is a very nice hotel, not at all like a US Ramada Inn. We decided to take it easy tonight and just eat in the hotel, but that turned out to be an adventure as well. The restaurant off the lobby offered both buffet and menu ordering so we decided to order off the menu. Our guide Kathy had gone back to her hotel so we asked the waitress to explain to AiJun in Chinese the difference between buffet and menu ordering. She didn't know what we were talking about and became increasingly alarmed as we talked. We gave up and handed AiJun a menu that was in both English and Chinese. Before we realized what was happening, he had ordered 4 items! We asked the waitress to tell us what they were, but she just couldn't. We thought, what the heck, he has probably never had the chance to order off the menu so let's just see what shows up. Jake has now had 24 hours of being an older sibling so he began the refrain that has become so familiar with his older sisters, "Why does HE get to do that!" By this time I was slap happy and tried to hide my serious fit of hysterical giggles behind my napkin. I think the thing that finally set me off was flipping through the menu and seeing "Jellyfish Head Salad." This was more than I could bear after juggling tiny barf bags on a bus all afternoon. AiJun ended up with a nice sampling of international cuisine and as we walked out, the maitre 'd followed us out and asked what country we were from!

That's all for now folks! We have very few pictures today. We are grateful that AiJun is feeling fine tonight and yet very sorry that we have to take the bus back to Shenyang on Sunday! Tomorrow is an easier day - applying for his passport in the morning and then the orphanage visit. I almost forgot the best news of all - the adoption is final and AiJun is 100% ours now!