Day 8

Today was a free day and we elected to go see the Longmen Grottoes outside the city of Luoyang.  It was incredible.  Luoyang was the capital city of China for 13 dynasties before being relocated to Beijing.  The Grottoes were carved over four centuries in four distinct phases starting in the year 493.  They were carved into the side of two mountains separated by the Yi River (pronouned ee) from limestone and originally were painted in various colors which really isn't visible now.  The grottoes are in various sizes and some sculptures are smaller than your hand.  Time has worn on the sculptures and some have been vandalized but the beauty is still intact.  Just imagining the hundreds of workers that it required to do the work and even the height at which they had to work is amazing.  There are more than 100,000 Buddhist statues carvings and 60 pagodas.  Buddhist monks and believers would come to the grottoes to worship.  Without further explanation, I'll let the pictures show the rest.

This boy travels well.  He always falls asleep in the car.  Makes it easy on us.

Notice the smog.  The smog was totally killing my pictures today.

Nuclear power is very important in China.  We've seen many of these.  Here there are actually five but in a moving van, we got a picture of three on our way to the Grottoes.

The sign says Longmen but it reads from right to left as was proper in ancient China.  However today, Chinese read left to right.

How do you beat the heat and carry Jordy?  This proved to be an effective solution.

I love the flower in the ceiling.  It's beautiful.

Such a cool picture of the grottoes, the Yi River, and the boat ferry.

These are the steps up to the largest carvings.  Well worth the climb but it was so hot that we nearly died making the climb.  Again, totally worth it.  Once in a lifetime opportunity.

I love art and to me, it just doesn't get much better than this.  Incredible!

This picture gives you perspective on just how large these really are.

A look down from above.  Our guide is standing with our stroller under the shade of a weeping willow.

An excellent view of the Yi River.

We are taking a boat ferry back because it's too stinkin' hot to walk anymore.

A look at a boat ferry.

Tell me that this isn't breathtaking.  I dare you!

You can see the pagodas on the side of the opposite mountain but we didn't quite make it to them.  I'll be honest, I was feeling a little dizzy and dehydrated after the climbing we had already done.

The pagodas up close.

This was our driver for the day that found this wonderful traditional restaurant to eat at and our guide "Tina" is sitting next to him.  They gave us a wonderfully air conditioned private room.  We ordered four dishes which you share on a spinning circle in the middle.  It's called family style.

Words cannot express how good this dish was.  The white noodles are actually a crunchy hollow root vegetable.  This has been one of my favorites thus far.

This was also amazing.  The brown noodle things are actually tall and skinny mushrooms that don't taste like mushroom.

This is fried eggplant in a sweet sauce.  Oh. My. Word.  This was the best of all we ate.  I wish I could duplicate this at home.

This turned to be a bad choice.  It tasted awesome and was spicy but the meat wasn't boneless.  You had to eat the meat off of the bone and the pieces weren't very big to begin with.  Craziness.

After stuffing ourselves to the gills, we were back on the road home.  Tina is such a wealth of information.  She shared with us on the way to the Grottoes that it is common in China for people to live in caves.  What?  She said that the older population does it more than young ones.  The caves stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter and they DO have electricity.  I was stunned but then I saw it on the side of the mountains.  Check out the pictures of our drive home.

This is a terrible picture but we had to show you that this is common for two rows of cars to be stacked on top of a car trailer.  This wouldn't fly in the US.

Here you can see there are entry ways and windows.

More windows.

Up in the right hand corner is a window.

Our fruit try for the day.  These are larger than golf balls and about the size of a plum.  You sort of crack it like an egg shell on the outside and peel it back.

The inside has these little wedges that you eat.  They are very squishy but quite tasty and one of them contained a pit.  Not really worth while when you do all that work for such a small portion but it truly was a tasty fruit.  One thumb up for this fruit.  Many of the fruits we have tried do not have an English translation that we could understand.  Otherwise, we would happily share.

That's all for tonight.  Tomorrow, we leave Zhengzhou and head for Guangzhou and then it's US bound on Thursday.  Keep us in your prayers as we travel by plane to our next destination for our consulate appointment.

Day 7

Today was a free day.  Completely open to do what we wanted at leisure.  Our wonderful guide volunteered to take us back to Walmart to look for a few things that we knew we couldn't find on our own.  It was actually quite fun.  She introduced us to multiple food items, mostly fruit, to try.  At Walmart, we were stopped by an older man that started talking about reading the Bible and believing in Jesus.  I was so stunned that he had the sense to even share with us his belief.  How he knew we were believers I can only say had to be a God moment because he just knew and felt the need to let us know that he too believed.

After Walmart, we came back to the hotel, ate lunch, went for a swim, and then went to a local park.  An interesting experience at the park, a younger guy walked by us and I said, "Ni Hao."  It's my natural response to the constant stares.  Smile and say hello.  It softens many people but not all.  This young guy started trying to communicate with us.  He noticed Jordy was Chinese and put it together that we were adopting him.  He then proceeded to give us a magic show where he showed us all of his slight of hand tricks.  It was really quite neat.  He enjoyed doing it and wouldn't accept a tip.

Overall, today was a simple day and we enjoyed it.

  This is the fruit we saw a few days ago but didn't try until today.

The inside of the fruit is very stringy and looks like chicken and boy does it taste bad.  My sister warned us and she was right.  It's hard to describe it.  It had a hint of garlic flavor with a bit of sweetness and a touch of just plain yuck.  Two thumbs down here.

This is another food we wanted to try.  It's actually part of a water lily flower.  You eat the seeds which are the round spots on the top by pulling the flower apart.  We tried it.  We didn't like it.  Two thumbs down.

Milk in little bags.  Similar to Canada but in little packs perfect for individual use and does not need to be refrigerated until opened.

Corn is big here.  This is a flavor of oatmeal that Dustin is going to try for breakfast.

This fruit is the consistency of a potato and is slightly sweet.  It earns an even score.  We didn't throw it out but we won't go searching it out again.

Lunch from the deli at Walmart.  Roasted Duck, green beans in soy sauce with spicy peppers and sticky rice.  It was awesome!  I think this may have cost us $5 USD.

The following pictures are from the rare gem of a park just a block from our hotel.  It really is pretty and no bikes or scooters are allowed making it even better.

Notice the center of the flower.  The green part is what we tried today.

My favorite find of the day.  This fruit is the size of a golf ball.

You peel it like an orange.

The inside has this squishy fruit with a pit in the center and it tasted really good.  Two thumbs up finally!!!

I did a horrible job of taking people pictures today.  Jordy slept through the park and I forgot the camera at the pool.  I'll do better tomorrow.  We are heading to the Longmen Grottoes.  Here's a picture from last night.  It will have to do for today.

Day 6-We are official!!

It is Tuesday here and today was the day that we finalized our adoption of Jordy.  Monday the Chinese government gave us 24 hour custody.  This is sort of an opportunity to get to know our child and decide if we really want to finalize the adoption.  Go ahead and laugh now.  We have prayed.  We have spent hundreds of hours, and an enormous amount of resources, gone halfway around the world.  Is there any chance we would not finalize our adoption?  Fat chance.  Perhaps, there are those that would back out but I can't imagine it.

We headed to the Civil Affairs office around 9am and waited for the other families to arrive just like Gotcha Day.  We were gathered together in a circle around the Civil Affairs officer and a Chinese woman translated her words for us.  The officer shared with us that she was honored to be a part of the process and to see the children going to their new families.  She then began to pass out our official adoption certificates in red folders.  That was it.  Nothing more and we were on our way back to the hotel.  We had a few hours to eat lunch and then we had to take a two hour drive each way to PingDingShan.  This is the city that Jordy is from and we had to go there to apply for his passport.  When we got there, the orphanage director was there to greet us.  She informed us that the computer system wasn't working properly and that they were not accepting new passport applications.  However, because we were adopting, they were going to go ahead and process our request.  Yay!  That could have been a real downer.  Normally, a passport for a resident of China takes 2-3 months to process but the Chinese government pushes adoption passports through in 3 days.  We have to remain in Zhengzhou until Friday just to wait for his passport to be completed.

And now, for a picture review of today:

I woke up next to this sweetness. :)

The cars and track are a HUGE hit.  Jordy looks forward to this!!

The translator sharing with us what the officer had to say.

Beginning to pass out the red folders.  

We are OFFICIAL!  The Petrosky's are going to rule the world with our brood of five. ;)

This boy is such a good eater.  He has eaten everything we have put in front of him except the green peppers on his pizza.

I promised a belly shot and this isn't a very good one but I feel bad walking up to a Chinese dude and saying may I take a picture of your gut.  But you at least get the idea.  Men everywhere are doing the half shirt midday when it is hottest.  Some even roll them up past their chest.

Scooters are everywhere!

If you had the opportunity to be in traffic with us, you would understand just how dangerous this is but it is normal.  The law is only one person on a moped at a time but it doesn't stop anyone from doing it.

Excuse the blur but you have to see this.  A father and mother with her baby in her arms.  Dustin actually saw a family of five on a scooter.

Thank goodness he likes pizza.  It's a staple in our household.

This cutie is learning his name.  He didn't respond well to his Chinese name or his nickname.  So, we said what the heck, we are just using Jordy.  He's getting used to it and starting to look in our direction.  :)

I like this picture for several reasons.  She is riding a bike in a skirt.  Women are constantly doing this and most of the skirts aren't this long.  She has long sleeves on when it's mid 90s out.  She's wearing heels and peddling.  And, check out the see through visor.  These are usually worn completely over the face to help with the sun.

Some interesting facts about the Henan Province.  There are two growing seasons here a year for crops.  The first crop is wheat which is harvested in May and then corn is planted and is harvested in October.  Then they plant wheat again to start the next growing season.  Other crops that are very common in this area are cotton and peanuts.  I was surprised because it actually gets as low as -10 degrees here in the winter which is a very short season but still.

On the way to PingDingShan, we passed by some mountains and I asked the name of the mountains.  I learned that PingDingShan was named for the mountains.  Shan means mountain and Ping means flat.  This area is best known for it's coal mines.  It's a very poor area although we really didn't see the outlying areas.  And we passed by a nuclear power plant just on the edge of the city.

Tomorrow and Thursday are free days for us while we wait for the passport.  We aren't sure what adventure we will embark on yet.  Now that the adoption is finalized, I'm ready to come home.  We still have 10 days left before we are officially home.  :(  I miss our kids, our home, our life but I'm thankful for our time here to get to know Jordy.  He is a ball of fun!

Until tomorrow . . .