Tokyo Sightseeing

After the fish market, we walked a little ways to the Ginza district, which is known as Tokyo's Fifth Avenue. They had quite the large displays like you might see in Times Square. They also featured many high-end stores like Gucci, Prada, and one called Wako. It was very uncrowded. On the way we passed a really cool Kabuki theatre. In all, we weren't really all that impressed by the Ginza district, which boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the world.



We took the subway to Hibiya, and found a statue of Godzilla! Of course, I thought it would be huge, but it was in this little out-of-the-way courtyard. Here he is:


Godzilla vs. Brian!

We then took a short stroll to the Imperial Palace, which is where Japan's royal family lives. It is mostly off-limits to the public, so we walked around the gardens a bit (not all that great), and got as close as we could to take this picture, which was about all you could see:



There was a gate with two guards standing in front, perfectly still, but they were quite a ways away as well. In all, the Imperial Palace wasn't all that impressive, and we overheard others say similar things (including a mother and son from Australia that we met at breakfast this morning).

After Hibiya, we went to the coolest stop of all on our Tokyo trip: Shibuya. This is more like what we expected from one of the world's biggest metropolis areas. There were people everywhere. This is also the place that the young, hip Japanese go. It is definitely the hub of modern Japanese fashion! We have never seen so many mini-skirts with boots in our lives! We also got to see first-hand the cool hairdos for men and women. It is quite the busy spot as well. We spent a little time at the 6-way intersection just watching the mass of humanity coming and going. They have these really huge television screens going, too, including the one on the Q-Front building, with a screen that covers most of the skyscraper.


The six-way intersection - crossing chaos!

We found the statue of Hachiko, which has an interesting story to it. There was a professor in the 1920s who would take his dog, Hachiko, with him to the train station at Shibuya every day. The dog would wait at the station for him to return each day. One day, the professor died while at work. The dog went to the station anyway to wait for him. The dog continued this for 10 years after the man died. Once the dog died, the locals dedicated a statue to the dog, honoring his loyalty. Even today, over 70 years later, people still go to the statue to pay their respects. It is also a popular meeting place for people in the Shibuya area.


Wendy with Hachiko - don't get jealous, Ellie!

Brian wanted to try out the Pachinko machines, but after watching people play, he realized there was no way he could understand how it worked (trust me, it is much more confusing than you think it might be). It was also maddeningly noisy in the parlor, and we were still carrying our travel sickness headaches from the previous day. So we found a drugstore and were able to communicate with a pharmacist. He helped us select some travel sickness medicine, and we were on our way. Then we ate at a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl-style restaurant. That was some good food, but we over-ordered. The soup bowls were huge! We also had some gyoza (pot stickers - the best we've ever had!) and some edamame (soy beans). It was all very good!

Apparently, the travel sickness medicine also makes you drowsy, so when we got back to ryokan at 3:30, Wendy went right to bed, and Brian stayed up for about another hour before he crashed. Wendy woke up at 9:30PM, then went back to bed after about an hour. Brian stayed asleep until 3:30AM, when both of us woke up again, ready to face the day! Jet lag probably had a little to do with our sleeping schedules as well.

So this morning, we will do a little more sightseeing in Tokyo (there is an amazing temple, Senso-ji, which we are going to explore), then it's back to the airport (hauling too much luggage again), and off to Beijing!

Tsukiji Fish Market

We left our ryokan around 5:30AM to head for the Tsukiji fish market, which is near downtown Tokyo. The transit system here is amazing - it is very easy to find your way around, and the efficiency of the system, which is legendary, is something to behold. Everything is so clean, too. It cost us each 190 yen to get to our destination, which is around $1.50 US. The exchange rate is about 116 yen per US dollar. Their coin denominations are 1, 10, 50, 100 and 500 yen.


It's really not as hard as it looks...

Since it was so early in the morning, the subways weren't all that crowded. Apparently many Japanese take a week off surrounding New Year's, so perhaps there weren't as many people trying to get to work.

Once we arrived at Tsukiji Station, it was just a short walk to get to the Wholesale Fish Market. What awaited us there was unbelievable! It was pure chaos. There were people and seafood everywhere. The building itself is huge, and completely crammed full of little stalls where people were selling there wares to buyers for restaurants all over Tokyo (and the rest of Japan, probably). They have these little motorized cars that zip around everywhere, and there are people on scooters and bikes zipping by all the time. It's amazing there aren't any accidents. You really have to just keep walking once you've committed to going someplace, or else you will get run over! There were also countless people pulling carts of fish. The floors were covered with seawater, fish guts, blood, bits of styrofoam and plastic.





The tuna are huge! People were using band saws and curved, long blades to trim the tuna into chunks to sell.


Frozen tuna after the auction

And to think that this happens every day - unbelievable!

After the fish market, we wandered around the open-air market, where there were all kinds of things for sale, including lots of seafood (duh) and other related products. It was like a farmer's market, seafood-style.

We ate some very fresh sushi at a restaurant quite close to the wholesale market. It was really good, although we weren't too adventurous with our choices. We had the medium sushi plate, which had some tuna and other fish we couldn't identify. We also ordered the spiny lobster sushi plate, and we washed it all down with Japanese green tea.

Arrival in Tokyo!

Our flight from Portland to Tokyo was mostly uneventful. It was actually not as bad as we thought it would be for a 10 hour flight! We met our adoption travel group mates, Joanna and Ama, at the airport and got to spend some time with them before boarding. The plane was really nice - each seat had its own personal video screen, where you could play any movie from a variety of films, play games, listen to music, or watch a real-time map of your flight. We got some different foods that we never had before, too - ice cream bars for one, and fried rice for another (although that wasn't too good). Best of all, we had exit row seats, which on this plane meant no seats in front of us at all! We had a lot of room in front of us, so it was nice to stretch out! However, at the end of the flight, we hit some turbulence that knocked both of us for a loop; enough to make us both feel pretty ill. This lasted well into the next day.

We smoothly made it through customs in Tokyo, then traded in some US $ for yen. We rode a train from Narita airport to Tokyo, then took a cab to our hotel (ryokan). The cab driver thought that Wendy was Japanese! He said her face looked Japanese, and he was talking to her in Japanese. When Wendy explained that she was Chinese-American, and that her parents were born in Los Angeles, he said, "Uh, Yankees - no, Dodgers!" He was very helpful. We didn't know that they drive on the opposite side of the street here, so that was interesting. It was raining very hard when we arrived.

By the way, it is very clear to us that we packed WAY too much! We thought we hadn't, but trying to get all of our things on a train while others are trying to board, then wheeling them around the station to find the taxis, was quite the exercise. We don't know how we're going to manage this once we get Sydney!

Our ryokan is amazing! It is all wooden inside our room. When entering your room, you are to take off your shoes. When walking around the hotel, such as to go to the public baths on the top floor, you are to wear some slippers they give you. They are too big for Wendy and too small for Brian. Oh well. They also give you some yukata to wear (robes). Here are Brian and Wendy modeling their yukatas:





Brian went up to the sixth floor to try out the Japanese bath. It was very warm, a lot like a hot tub. It was dark in there, and there is a view of the Senso-ji temple that is very nice. Brian was the only one up there at the time (at least in the male side of the baths; they are separated by gender). It was quite relaxing!

The futons are quite comfortable. For a cover sheet, they use a duvet covered by a sheet turned upside-down. It really feels nice! We slept until 4:00AM the next day. This actually worked out well for the activity we planned to start the day.

Ellie waits

Ellie can sense that something big is about to happen.

She has been moping around all day and we found her in Sydney's room recently. She will be staying with her favorite friends Chris and Shawna and their dogs Sadie and Pepper. She will also get to stay with Grandpa and Grammy Pederson which should be fun, with the cats Snickers and Chester (aka the Evil one). We sure will miss our first baby!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Some changes to our trip:

Due to the Chinese government closing on January 1st, 2nd and 3rd, we will actually be getting Sydney on the 3rd instead of the 2nd. So we have one extra day without her. I know this makes no sense but the powers that be told us that the 3rd is the day.

Also, we are adding another couple to our travel group - we're not sure of their names other than their last name - Seymour - and they are adopting a special needs baby. These types of adoptions happen more quickly and so they were a last minute addition to our group.

Just so you know.

Sydney's Room

We painted Sydney's room yesterday. Here it is:




It's hard to tell the color from this picture. You can look at this to see a better representation, if you so desire: Sydney's Room Color - type in 7023 to see - it's called "Lupine," and it is the far left-hand side color.

Travel Itinerary - Nanchang and Guangzhou, China

We get to finally meet Sydney on Tuesday, January 2nd! Then we part with a significant sum of American currency, but in the grand scheme of things, we think we're getting the better end of the deal. While in Nanchang, we are staying at a hotel called the Gloria Plaza Hotel.



Then we stay in Nanchang for a few days of sightseeing and more official paperwork.

We fly to Guangzhou on January 7th. While there, Sydney will get her visa photo taken and get a physical exam. We also have (you guessed it) more official paperwork to do. We won't be staying at the famous White Swan while in Guangzhou, however. At the recommendation of our adoption coordinator Fei, we will instead be lodging at the Victory Hotel.


Not the picture you had in mind of a hotel in China, is it?

So, we are staying at the Gloria Plaza Hotel in Nanchang and the Victory Hotel in Guangzhou...and Wendy's parents are named Gloria and Victor...coincidence? We think not!

Once everything is cleared, we fly out of Guangzhou and come home to Portland via Tokyo on January 11th. Due to flying over the International Date Line, we leave China at 8:30 AM on the 11th, and we arrive in Portland at 7:00 AM, also on the 11th. So it appears that time travel is possible...

Travel Itinerary - Beijing, China

We meet everyone for our travel group in Beijing, China, on December 28th. Everyone will already be in China save for Tim and Inge, who arrive the same time we do, on the same flight out of Tokyo, no less!

On December 29th, we will visit the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, and there will be a Kung Fu perfomance in the evening.

The next day, we will go to the Summer Palace, Hutong and the Xiushui Market, where we will get to practice some of our Mandarin phrases: Tai gui le! Shao dian! (that's too expensive! Cheaper, please!) Also, we hope to purchase a Mao watch! Our evening entertainment will be an acrobatic show - that should be cool!

New Year's Eve day takes us to the Great Wall. We will also have a Peking roast duck dinner!

On New Year's Day, January 1st, we fly to Nanchang...so very close now!

Travel Itinerary - Tokyo, Japan

The details of our trip have been finalized!

We fly out on Christmas Day, and we are stopping in Tokyo, Japan for 2 days. We are doing this mainly because we can. We figured, when are we going to get to Japan again? Also, it will be fun to add another stamp in our passports.

While in Tokyo, we are going to mainly just cruise around the city using their amazing and efficient transportation system. One of the highlights we definitely don't want to miss is the Tsukiji Fish Market. This is where all the fish for Tokyo comes in every morning, and there is a huge auction by all the restaurants each day. Apparently there is a pretty amazing sushi place here as well...that makes Wendy very excited!



We have a Tokyo guide book that will help us find some neat things to see and do in our limited time there. However, we have to tell about the place we will stay while in Tokyo...

In our guidebook, they recommended staying in a Japanese-style room if you can. Looking on the Frommer's travel web site, they recommended the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu as the best modern Japanese-style hotel in Tokyo. We e-mailed the ryokan yesterday (at nighttime, which was Monday morning Tokyo-time), and they e-mailed right back to help us set it up, putting us in one of the Japanese-style rooms! Check out the web site for this amazing hotel: Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu. I especially like the bizarre yet cute splash page for their web site. Mom, it has a cat on it!


View from the Japanese Bath on the top of our ryokan!

While in Tokyo, we are also going to look for the Godzilla statue, the famous Ginza district, Shibuya (another Times Square-like area) and anything else that catches our eyes.

We leave for Tokyo for Beijing on the 28th.

Our First Baby Shower

Brian's coworkers were kind enough to throw us a small shower tonight, with the eighth grade staff and administrators. It was held at Lynette's house, complete with a Larson's Bakery cake, Parson's Pigs in a Blanket, Val's Awesome Hot Bean Dip, well, I could go on but I ate too much!



Here is the fireside adoption chat with the Pedersons. Note the homemade decorations on the mantel courtesy of Lynette's five-year-old daughter. She painstakingly taped each individual mini-streamer onto the mantel. We hope Sydney is this creative!

Getting stuck

Yesterday we got our travel immunizations! Ouchie wawa.





Here's helpful Nurse Peggy preparing to poke Brian four times.



Note the look of concern on Wendy's face...for her five shots.



We are now recovering from this ordeal and hoping our arms recover in time to be able to hold Sydney.

The Elusive I-171H

It's here! It's here! It's here!

We got our I-171H in the mail today! That was the last hurdle we had to cross before all signs said go!

Yeah!

Here she is!

Boy, all this talk about Sydney, and we don't even have pictures on the blog yet...

These pictures were supposedly taken when she was five months old.

Where is Sydney?

Sydney is in Jiangxi Province in China. We are going to go there to pick her up. Jiangxi is the highlighted province in this little map here.

Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part 2

One of other facets of the USCIS that we've had to deal with is the immigration forms. Specifically, adoptive parents need to fill out form I-600A in order to get pre-approval to bring a child back from a foreign country and to make them a U.S. citizen. The form they send back is the I-171H, and this is one of the most important forms we need to take with us. The fee for this piece of paper is $545.00.

As with fingerprints, this document expires, but this one takes 18 months. That sounds like a lot of time, doesn't it? Well, there is some lag time after you get this form before your mountain of paperwork goes to China and the Chinese government puts you in the queue to get a child. This is known as the log-in date, or LID. The current wait time for this is 13-14 months (this fluctuates for no apparent reason that we've found). After you get your referral, there is more lag time for families to accept the referral, get travel approval, then actually travel. This can take 6-8 weeks or more.

All of this is to say that our I-171H is about to expire. So, once we got our referral, we were told to renew our I-171 as quickly as possible. So we did - we filled out a new I-600A, and sent in another $545.00 (after renewing our fingerprints, of course).

Oddly enough, we were advised by the agency we did our home study with to NOT tell the USCIS that we were needing this form quickly, or else it would surely find its way to the bottom of the pile. So, we diligently sent in a generic cover letter, saying we needed to re-apply for the I-171H. We overnighted the packet to the Yakima Sub-Office to get it there fast. The USCIS sent us a receipt, telling us they received our packet on November 9th.

Now the first time we got our I-171H, it took around 6-7 weeks. If that same time frame holds true, it would be cutting it extremely close to our travel date. It was suggested that we contact our congressperson in our area to ask the USCIS to expedite our application. So I got a hold of someone at the office of U.S. Representative Brian Baird. He has a section on his website about getting help with dealing with a federal agency!

The case worker from Rep. Baird's office contacted us yesterday and told us that USCIS doesn't expedite anything, so there is nothing we can do. He told me that in very rare cases, they can make an extension on a previous I-171H, but not to count on that. He also told me that the 18 month window is there because things can change a lot in a family in that time frame and possibly make them a security threat or something like that. I feel safer already after that explanation! I told him that I was really frustrated by all this, and he understood and told me he has already passed on this information to Representative Baird.

So, here is another time when a federal agency that we pay for is extremely unhelpful and frustrating to deal with.

Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part 1

Well, through this process of adoption from China we have learned a few things about the way your government works!

Our first enlightenment came when we needed to get our fingerprints taken. Now, mind you, Wendy and I have both had our fingerprints taken several times while living in California, then when we came up to Washington, as this is standard procedure for teachers. Presumably, this information is given to the FBI. So you would think they would be on file, right? You'd be incorrect on that. We had to get them redone each time. Who do you think had to pay for that?

When we needed to get fingerprinted for USCIS (formerly the INS, now under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security), we discovered that there was an office in Portland that does fingerprinting! How convenient for us! We could just call them, make an appointment at our earliest convenience, show up, pay and be done.

Of course, this being the U.S. government, things cannot be THAT easy. We had to send our fingerprinting fee ($70 each) and application to the Yakima sub-office, requesting an appointment at the Portland office. Then we waited. When we got the letter back, it told us when to show up. Oh, is that appointment during the middle of your work day? That's too bad. You have to miss work that you won't get paid for? Gosh.

Anyway, we did that.

Then, 15 months later, our fingerprints expired. I guess a lot can happen to your fingerprints in 15 months.

So, we had to do the process over again. And yes, it was another $70 each.

You'd think, with modern technology what it is, that we could schedule and pay for our own fingerprinting appointment online. Oh, but wait, that would probably make the USCIS run just a little bit more efficiently. Then they would probably have to also make their other departments just as efficient, like the one that takes forever to allow someone to legally become a U.S. citizen from another country...but I digress...

Wendy's New Haircut

Long, long ago, Wendy decided that she would grow out her hair until we got our referral. Well, how was she to know that it would take over a year after she said that before we did? This actually worked out well, because her hair was long enough to donate it to an organization that makes wigs for cancer patients that have lost their hair. Wendy did this as a tribute to her mom, Gloria, who will have to wear a wig for the rest of her life due to the chemotherapy she has to go through again.

Here is Wendy getting her long hair cut off!


One last look at the long hair!



The cutting begins...



Here is the hair!

Wendy is now mailing the hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths in Wisconsin, where they will use her hair to make a wig for a woman who has lost her hair due to cancer.

Our China Travel Group

Here is the wonderful group of people that we will be traveling with to pick up our daughter! A few weekends ago, Joanna and Ama graciously hosted a brunch for all of us. We got to meet everyone, swap some stories, try on some baby carriers and eat some excellent food!

Going around the table, from left to right, are Ama and Joanna, Lydia and Paul, us, and Inge and Tim.

However, not everyone in our travel group could be here on this day. Janet, who will be traveling with her sister, lives in Chicago and wasn't able to be there. We are sure looking forward to meeting her, too!