Welcome to Hawai’i.
Where pronouncing the ‘i means you will have to pay a lil extra. We have been faced with expensive drinks with no alcohol on many an occasion. When that happens in China, we usually switch to wine where you can’t take the alcohol out, right? Well maybe not, but they can take the taste out. Yesterday we had a switch from our watered-down-over-priced drinks to a glass of wine and it was called “Fish Eye”. It should have been called “Fish Pee” for it tasted like salt water.

At dinner we got wise and asked for an extra shot in the fruity concoction, “Yes, but that will be an extra charge.” Ok. Then we asked for more chips and salsa at the Mexican restaurant, “Yes, but that will be an extra charge.” uhm.. Ok. I asked for chicken on my salad, “Yes, but that wil.. You get the idea. It has been like this all week.

If we have not been gouged by prices we have become zombies waiting in line at every government office on Waikiki. They should call it “Wait hee hee.”

Here is just an idea of the type of paperwork we have had to go through JUST IN HAWAII (note travel times in taxis and hour long bus rides excluded):
1. Present to customs upon arrival: passports, sealed envelope from CIS GuangZhou, Adoption Certificate.
Time: 20 min. Grief Level 2/10
2. Print 7 specific pages that state we have an appointment the same day we arrived.
Time: 15 min. Grief Level 3/10. Cost $7.13!
3. Find only specific Post Office that will give us a Money Order.
Time: 45 min. Grief Level 4/10.
4. Go to Homeland Security to schedule Citizenship interview.
Time: 60 min. Grief Level 4/10.
5. Visit Social Security office for proof of having lived in the U.S. and get SIMPLE 2 second printout!
Time: 3 hours. Grief Level 9/10.
6. Return to Homeland Security at SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT TIME after stupid government holiday to have them tell you, “Ohhh, we were looking for you at 8am, but now we are busy” when you have your paper time stamped BY THEM at 8:00am proving you were there and then you wait in the hall with all the Filipinos for 45 minutes!
Time: 2 hours. Grief Level 10/10.
7. Race over to Passport Control to make 10:00am appointment, fill in paper, and hand them freshly printed citizenship paper.
Time: 1 hour. Grief Level 5/10.
8. Visit Taiwan Ancillary Office to get proof of parenthood for visa so kid can live with us.
Time: 2 hours. Grief Level 9/10.
9. Get proof of parenthood notarized
Time: 30 minutes. Grief Level 2/10.
10. Get proof of parenthood signed by a Judge
Time: 3 hours. Grief Level 6/10.
11. Return to pick up passport.
Time: 1 hour. Grief Level 5/10.
12. Return to Taiwan Ancillary Office to show passport and signed, sealed, delivered, and pissed on paper approved by everyone except Arnold and my grandmother.
WASTE of Time: 1 hour. Grief Level 10/10.
13. Frantically change tickets from next Sunday to tomorrow and get the hell off Hawa’i'i’i'i!
PRICELESS

God bless B for some how she keeps all of this straight in her head and knows exactly what to do. Gioia, this is why they invented Mother’s Day. If I had to do it I would have to have a list for each place and then probably a master list to keep all the other lists straight. Phew..

See the pictures!
See the movies!

We will describe it all later.

Many of you have asked questions around:
What is the baby’s name?
How do you say it?
What about her Chinese name?
Where did ‘X’ come from?

But before we get to that…

I am reading a book called “Beyond Coincidence.” It is a great book from B that talks about all the crazy coincidences in life. Things like Kennedy and Lincoln parallels, people winning the lottery twice on the same day, a child releasing a balloon and it landing in the yard of another child with the same age and same name, the mummy’s curse, etc…

Now I tend to see this kind of stuff all the time in my life and it is crazy. One of my friends in Beijing diagnosed me as obsessive compulsive and she says that is why I see this kind of thing, but when I start explaining it to you, you can’t deny it. Take this example: I am reading this book on the plane. AFTER 6 hours of waiting because we were redirected because of snow. I had read another book and finished it and was now picking this one back up. Now on this CHINESE flight into the heart of China with everyone reading Chinese newspapers and books, I happen to sit next to the one guy who after hours on the plane decides to read the “Time” magazine in front of him. Actually, I don’t think he is reading it, but rather thumbing through the pictures. One of them drew my attention as well. It was an article on Bobby Fischer, the chess champion. About how he was a genius and such. I thought, “Hmmm, Yeah, I remember that movie ‘Searching for Bobby Fischer’.” Oh well, back to my book…

I turned the page and there in the middle of page 158 is and example of coincidence called “Icelandic Chess”. It is a story about a reporter writing about Bobby Fischer’s chess championship. Come on. Tell me something weird is not going on!

Now what does all that have to do with Baby G? Well, we received the announcement that we could adopt her and her pictures for the first time on Jan 2nd. This is our legal wedding anniversary. On Jan 31st we will officially adopt her. This is our religious wedding anniversary. (it gets better)

Her English name is/will be Gioia Beatrix Beukenkamp.

Gioia is Italian for joy. It comes from one of our friends in Chicago. We went to dinner and I swear I had to ask her 15 times what her name was until I got it (seriously, buy a consonant). After that it just kind of stuck with us. This is also where B’s blog comes from: missgioia.com

Beatrix has double significance:
1. It is the name of one of our favorite authors Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit fame. We also saw the movie which starred Renée Zellweger. Renee also was in Bridget Jones Diary which is one of the main reasons we met, but that is another story.
2. Beatrix is also the Queen of Holland and being of Dutch ancestry and having a Dutch last name, we thought it only fitting.

Now, her Chinese name will be Bei Le Xin. We are not doing the typical American thing of giving her a Chinese middle name as described on her orphanages website. In China/Taiwan this does not make any sense as you need to translate your name, not have half and half. My Chinese name is Bei Kang Hong. I actually like it a lot and it works. It is the same Bei that is in David Beckham’s Chinese name, it is an easy character to write ( 贝), and it is not common like Beuk. The only bad thing is that in Taiwan it is the same name (Kang Hong) as some 60 year old singer that I don’t think sings very well. Oh well, I like it. (click here to hear it) So, since last names are first in Asia, my Bei is Gioia’s Bei and it means precious which I am sure she will be.

A Chinese name is used for tons of things from mail to forms to ordering pizza to allowing people to be able to simply pronounce your name. Take for example the dry cleaners has to enter a Chinese name for you in their computer. B tends not use her Chinese name, but that is because she has less direct interaction with people on the street than I do and Coke translates well into Chinese and it makes us smile when we say it (ke ko ke le).

(come on, come on… where is the coincidence?)
Her Chinese name comes from the orphanage and we have decide to keep it. Mostly because Le Xin means happy or joyous heart. A search for the word “joy” shows that her name is the same as what is used in ‘le qu’ or joy. So, her English name and Chinese name coincidentally have the same meaning. I know you can find meaning in anything if you search hard enough, but come on…we could have named her Rachel.

Baby G’s orphanage: http://www.fulingkids.org/
Simple online translation: http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html

To say there was some turbulence today as we started our journey towards Gioia would be an understatement. As B likes to say, “We were off like a herd of turtles.”

The Good
I arrived in Chong Qing
The baby stuff (crib, seat, etc.. ) is all fine
The hotel is great and a great room for us
I became a Bishop in the House of Zombie!

The Bad
Rebecca is still in Taiwan waiting on the package that did not come, yet.
Snow diverted my flight to Cheng Du
…where I waited for 6 hours on the plane.
I am definitely back in China complete with spitting, pushing, removing of shoes on airplanes, and halitosis

The Ugly
My cell phone dies and will not reboot after I shut it off for the plane ride
The package did not arrive. Rebecca will be busting some airline heads at 7am tomorrow making them scour the plane and find it.
It is butt ass cold here at 1C.

Tomorrow is another day!

From my favorite movie the Princess Bride:

MAN IN BLACK: If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a                    rope, or a tree branch, or find something                      useful to do.

INIGO:     I could do that. In fact, I've got some rope              up here. But I do not think that you will              accept my help, since I am only waiting              around to kill you.

MAN IN BLACK: That does put a damper on our relationship.

INIGO:       But I promise I will not kill you until you reach the top.

MAN IN BLACK: That's very comforting. But I'm afraid you'll just have to wait.

INIGO:        I hate wait.

I could not have said it better. I hate wait TOO!

Yay! we are booking flights. In case you want to know where we have to go, check it out:
(also scroll down for Baby G pics) Taiwan is in the botom right, but we have to go through HK first. FuLing is the pushpin, just next to Chong Qing. Pandas here we come!

Click on the map for a bigger picture

Hello all and welcome back!