Arrival in Urumqi

Today (Sunday) was our travel day to Urumqi.  Tomorrow is the day we will receive our son and officially adopt him! We were up and out of our hotel in Beijing by 5:30am  after a quick coffee run to McDonalds with a few of the other men in our group.  We had a relatively easy time in the airport and departed on time enroute to Urumqi (4.5 hour flight).  The flight was uneventful, but we were blessed to view the most beautiful mountains we've ever seen on our way into Urumqi.  At some point, I hope to share more about this city and the Xinjiang province, but it is a very unique and interesting part of China with a lot of history.  It is very different than the rest of China in many ways.

We met our guide (Lily) immediately after picking up our luggage.  She is the one who will be with us most of the next few days serving as a translator and taking us around to our appointments.  Today, our first stop was at The China Bank where we had to exchange our U.S. dollars to yuan.  A little stressful as we had several men dressed in black who met us at the door and followed us in to the bank.  Our guide told us these men were essentially part of the black market trying to give us a better deal on the exchange rate.  Not knowing the language, we felt pretty vulnerable, but our guide was not phased one bit!

We then dropped our luggage off at our hotel in downtown Urumqi and walked with our guide to the local supermarket to stock up on water and snacks for Josiah.  Glad our guide was with us because unlike Beijing, everything is written in either Mandarin or Uyghur (an eastern Turkic language).  Following our trip to the supermarket, we went back to our hotel room where we prepared paperwork for our adoption.  Our guide then took us to a local restaurant serving authentic dishes from this part of China.  We enjoyed lamb, rice, noodles, and a type of bread that was really good.  Our stomachs and our hearts are full tonight!   

Tomorrow morning we will leave our hotel at 9:45am for the Civil Affairs office where we will meet Josiah for the fist time around 10:00am (8:00pm Sunday in Hastings)!  By the end of the day, his adoption will be official!  

One interesting note...since we boarded the plane in Beijing, we have not seen one non-Asian person all day.  We've learned it is very rare to adopt a child from this area.  Our guide told us that as of September there had only been nine children adopted in this entire region. We heard there is one other American couple in Urumqi this week adopting a child from the same orphanage.  We should meet them tomorrow.  

Here are just a few photos from the day:

The mountains outside of Urumqi

View from our hotel

Katie and Lily at the supermarket

Our hotel is the background

Red fingerprinting on my signatures

Supper

The Chinese version of "The Voice"!