Simply Amazing

So many times during an adoption trip, we get a feeling of complete and utter amazement that just washes over us. Three times in the past, we have felt the joy of having a new daughter enter our life while visiting a place and seeing things that few Americans will ever see. And the past couple of days have added a fourth set of amazing experiences to our list.

Tori continues to do well bonding with her sisters. Mom is still her favorite, but Dad seems to be less scary than he had been :-)




Our Harbin guide, Lynn, has been working hard to get our paperwork done. She brought some draft documents to our hotel this morning for us to check, and while she was here, we explained our "situation" to her. Very few adopting families travel to Harbin, and even fewer do it while the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is in full swing. Lynn had been discouraging us from attending because of the extreme cold, but we knew we would always be disappointed if we traveled all this way and didn't at least make an effort. So, we asked her if she would write the names of the places we would need to go on a hotel card so we could get taxis to take us later that day. Once she saw how determined we were (and because China probably holds her responsible for us while we are in Harbin) she quickly worked out a way for us to use the driver that has been with us all this week instead of worrying about taxis. And she would even go along to help us purchase the necessary tickets and get in the venues without problems (although she declined to actually let us pay for a ticket for her - I think she thought we were nuts for wanting to subject ourselves to the elements). She would even wait in the van with the driver. Obviously, we quickly took her up on her offer and then let her get back to work on our important adoption documents until she returned at 3 pm to take us to the shows.

Have I mentioned that Harbin is COLD? I mean REALLY, REALLY, REALLY COLD? Because it is!!! Since Lynn was busy, we decided to take a walk along the river that is right in front of our hotel. We could see people taking sleigh rides on the frozen river and others skating. But we couldn't spend very long looking because it was FRIGID!!!




The sun was shining brightly, but the minus 2 degree temp (Fahrenheit, not Celsius) along with the 16 mph wind today made the exposed portions of our faces hurt and the rest of us just cold. We had seen many of the young girls in Harbin wearing what looked like fancy surgical masks on their faces and now we knew why. Luckily there is an underground shopping area just a few steps away from our hotel (booths with every kind of clothing and accessories imaginable), so we headed there to get out of the wind and to find some masks for the girls. Then, we trekked back to the hotel to rest a little and plan the multiple layers we would all need to be wearing later that afternoon. (The temps are bearable with a normal "Springfield amount" of winter clothing, as long as you don't stay out very long. We knew we would be out for several hours for the shows and that we would definitely need more protection than we had been wearing.)

Three o'clock arrived and the whole family departed, each member wearing at least 3 layers under our heavy coats and with Walmart-purchased chemical hand warmers in our pockets (and some of our boots :-). Our first stop was at a park on Sun Island where the snow sculptures could be seen. Lynn was able to negotiate the prices for the kids down a little. Jensyn got in free because she was under 1.2 meters tall. The other girls were given student rates of half the regular price. Cathy and I could have gotten our usual senior discount if they had offered one, but they didn't :-)




We walked for about an hour and a half along the park's walkways looking at the amazing snow sculptures.










By the time we had made it back to the waiting van, everyone was cold "to the bone" and we were concerned that Tori, who has to work harder to walk than the rest of us, was getting particularly tired. So, we asked Lynn if it would be OK for any of the girls who were too cold and/or too tired to sit in the van while the "less intelligent" members of the family visited the Ice Show. She was fine with that idea, and when we arrived at the site, our party was only 3 members strong (Steve, Cathy and Natalie). (Victoria initially started to get out of the van, but when Lynn explained to her that she could stay, she quickly said "OK, bye-bye, Mama" -smart girl :-)

The Harbin Ice Show is a collection of buildings and sculptures, all made from huge blocks of ice, lit from inside with a rainbow of lights.




Many of the buildings can be climbed or walked thru. Some have ice slides for the adventurous (like Natalie).







It's difficult to express just how amazing the work is.




We spent another hour and a half exploring this wonderland and by the end of our visit, we were pretty much as cold as we could get without losing an extremity :-).




But we were also sure that we had made the right decision to push to see these shows and add them to the list of our amazing adoption trip experiences.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to get our papers and Victoria's Chinese passport, do a little more sightseeing, and take the 4 hour flight from Harbin to Guangzhou (in far southern China), so we will get a chance to thaw out then.

(By the way, if you would like to see larger versions of any of the pics from the last few days, just click on the pic in the posting and a larger version will be shown.)


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