Hong Kong Survives The Newsome Boys

Well, we (the boys and I) made it back from Hong Kong. WOW WHAT A GREAT PLACE!!!!! Before our journey started we walked around with Dawn and Sofia:

The trip to Hong Kong started with a two hour express (bullet train) train ride from Guangzhou to Kowloon, China (which is the last stop before you get to Hong Kong Island but is yet considered "Hong Kong"). Of course Will loved it. Once we arrived in Kowloon, we took a taxi over to Hong Kong Island, where we would be staying.

To get Hong Kong Island, you take a tunnel that travels under the bay (the bay is the body of water inthe later pictures of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Harbor). This place was incredible. By the time we cleared customs, got to the hotel and settled in, it was night time. We walked around Hong Kong for a while (it's very busy and lots of people and traffic everywhere all the time) where it's just one street of lights and shopping after another and tehn we took another taxi up to Victoria's Peak. WOW ... its the highest point in Hong Kong and allows you to look down on the city and the views are incredible....here's a few photos of our first night (by the way, our hotel room was on the 26th floor of our hotel and the boys loved it):

You can see in the night photos of Hong Kong above just how big the skyline is by aligning the bright white light building. It was one of those places you go where it just seems magical and it was.

The next day we were off on a tour of many places in Hong Kong. The first photo is of part of the city on our way to our first stop, at the oldest temple in Hong Kong - The ManMo Temple:

Next, we were off to Victoria's Peak for a day time view of things... (by the way it was still a beautiful view). To get there, we took a tram/train that traveled up the mountain at a 45 degree angle. The train is the oldest public transportaion in Hong Kong - over 100 years old:

Next, we were off to the last "on water" fishing village in Hong Kong ( the fishing village was on the other side of the island from Hong Kong Harbor - the view you see above). Hong Kong was actually a rather poor fishing community before it was turned into what it is today. Therefore, we were going to see the roots of Hong Kong. We took a Sampan Fishing Boat ride around that particular harbor and saw the Fisher Boat Community (a place where the people live, eat, sleep ...they do everything on the boats and seldom if ever go to shore). The accomidations were less than desireable for these people but it seems to work for them.

We went to an open air market and did some shopping and then also took time to go to one of the two beautiful of these in Hong Kong...........can you guess? That's right ...a

We finished our trip to Hong Kong by going back to the heart of the city and doing some walking around seeing the sights before we headed back to the train station. The amount of people in this area is amazing. We were told that there are approximately 2400 people per square foot of land. Here's some final photos of some of the wonderful craziness that is Hong Kong:

Only a couple of things could have made this trip even better. More money, time and Dawn & Sofia being there with us. I will certainly bring the family back for a vacation in Hong Kong.

Tomorrow, we're off to Sofia's health inspection for her exit visa and passport. She's doing very well and seems to be settling in with us. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Day 4 comes to a close - Nov 10, 2006

Today turned out to be a down day for us without any adoption appointments. We had the morning to do "whatever" so we tooled around and looked into some shops. Meet a Chinese man who owned one of the shops and knew that Wisconsin was famous for cheese and the Packers. Here' some photos from our morning adventures (The picture below is a group of ladies who do a daily exercise dance in the park - no there's nothing wrong with the pictures the haze you see is the air quality issues I've written about. Today was the worse day to date for it):

Will has made friends with the bank guard. I'm not sure that's good as it would indicate that we to go there way too often. We had to make a trip to the bank so we could get the money we need for Monday's adoption related appointments.

Later in the day we in deed traveled to the Guangzhou Zoo. It was a very large zoo with a collection of animals from all around the world. We did in fact see a Giant Panda. Sofia managed to stay awake on ride to the zoo and from the zoo, but slept while we were in the zoo. Here's some photos from our trip:

Day 3 comes to a close

Today is winding down another busy day for The Newsome family. We were off and running to a couple of places for adoption appointments. Prior to our appointments, we made a walking trip off the island where our hotel is and ventured into the city. What an experience. We made this journey with another family from Oregon. It's amazing how many stores there are here and the deals you can make on everything from clothes to electronics. We were armed with our secret weapon, the charm of Mr. William Newsome. It helped us get some incredible prices quoted to us, but we didn't buy anything today none the less.

After a little shopping and walking around the city, it was off to some adoption processing appointments. Our first stop was to pick up our Certificate of Adoption from the Center for Chinese Adoptions and then we were off to take passport photos of Sofia.

In the passport photo room, we waited with the parents of approximately 100 other little babies anxiously going through the steps to get things finalized. Having that many babies in the final stages of processing for adoption was a sight to see. Every parent in the room had this look of joy and love on their faces. It also made you stop to think what would have become of these precious little ones had each family not been blessed with them.

We left and headed back to the hotel where Sofia took her nap and the boys and I went exploring again. We made it back to the room again and the whole family went out for one last stroll before calling it a day.

We've been blessed with great weather thus far as it's been in the high 80's to low 90's (and it's suppose to be warmer tomorrow - yea ha).

Today makes it official - Sofia is a Newsome

Today, we traveled back to the Center for Chinese Adoptions to complete the necessary paperwork and do interviews confirming that we were happy with Sofia and we wanted to adopt her. With a few strokes of the pen and verbal confirmations, Sofia became officially the latest member of the Newsome family.

The pictures above were taken just after signing the documents as we were leaving the building.


After we left the Chinese Adoption Center, we went to a 1,500 year old temple called Guangzhou Liurong Temple. The main temple is the tall one below. It was nine stories tall (I walked all the way to the top - The boys made it four stories and I had to take them back down). Stairs took you up but then you had to walk around outside of the temple to get to the next stair case (that's why the boys didn't like it). The lady included in the pictures below is Judy, she is our guide while we are in China - she's been absolutely GREAT! Judy has been our blessing here. She arranges all our transportion (in a private bus just for our family) and is educating us on the history of this city, country, and other information.

The stair photo is from inside the temple and the city photos are taken from the top of the temple.

While at the temple (where there are actually several temples, a rare week day occurance happended and there was a "service" going on with the Monks and people chanting their prayers. It was incredible. The main service was held in the following temple where three Buddas reside. After the service a monk blessed Sofia and allowed us to have our picture taken with him inside the temple.

( We have several other pictures we'll share with everyone when we return home)

After a rather busy day where Sofia officially became our daughter and we visited the temple, we were off to the hotel again. ( Don't stop reading there a nice surprise in the later photos )The hotel is on Shamian Island in Guangzhou. Let me tell you a little about the city and people of this great place.

Guangzhou is located west of Hong Kong. The population of the city is approximately 12 million and its a very clean city. It is the largest city in South China (outside of Hong Kong) and is a very busy port city. Some of the buildings appear to be older but very seldom due you see any litter on the streets. The people here are incredible. They are very nice and helpful. I feel safe (even walking around at 5 AM) here.

So back to leaving the temple. On our way back to the hotel the boys had told Judy (our guide) that they were hungry. Judy had our driver make a special stop for some wonderful Chinese food specific to the boy's order - See below :

That's right, Mc Donald's. Same food and taste you expect to get back home at Mc D's. Seriously, Judy asked us to join her for a what I assume will be an exceptional Chinese dinner later in the week. After Mc D's, it was back to the hotel where Dawn took Sofia to the room for a nap and the boys and I went walking around.

The following photos are some shots I took of the boys while Sofia napped :

We closed our second day out with dinner and back to our room. Here's a photo of Sofi in the hotel lobby, tired and ready to go to bed:

We'll see what tomorrow will bring us. We have some afternoon appointments but other than that, we're free to do whatever we want.

Sofia Alma LiYi Newsome has arrived!!!

Well, our first day in China and we're new parents again. Our beautiful little girl was delivered to us at 3:40 PM this afternoon. She's beautiful, playful, curious and a true blessing to us and we can't wait to have her meet each of you. Tomorrow, we go for more paperwork signing and confirm that in deed we want to keep/adopt Sofia. The pictures above and to the left here are our first photos of Sofia being handed to us.




Our evening included dinner (what's this, the Newsome's eating out..ha ha) and a little walking around to see some sights before we called it a night:

WE MADE IT TO CHINA

Well, we made it to China. We arrived last night at around 11 PM local time after right at 24 hours of traveling. We all traveled well but were very tired when we got to the hotel. It was 1:00 AM by the time we got to the hotel and unpacked.

It is currently 6:46 AM (that's 4:46 CST in the states) and we're already up and at it. TODAY'S THE BIG DAY. We will get Sofia at 2:30 PM today. We'll write more later today.

JUST A FEW MORE HOURS UNTIL .....

We again thank everyone for your prayers and support. Your out pouring of love has touched our family and we are truly blessed to have each of you as family and friends. In just a few short hours our journey to bring Sofia home will begin. We can't wait to bring her back to be surrounded by the love you've given to us.

James, Dawn, Zach, Will and Sofia

Our Flight Information to/from China

Several people have asked for our flight information to / from China. We'll, here it is (19 hours of actual flight time to China - not including layovers - and 16 hours coming back - thank you tail wind):


Departure Date November 5, 2006 (Northwest Airlines):


Milwaukee, WI (leave 9:17 am) to Minneapolis, MN (arrive 10:40 am)- Flight NW786
Minneapolis, MN (depart 1 pm) to Tokyo, Japan (arrive 4:40 PM Nov 6th)– Flight NW19
Tokyo, Japan (depart 6:10 pm) to Guangzhou, China (arrive 10:45 pm) – Flight NW 9

Return Date November 18, 2006:

Guangzhou, China (depart 8:30 am) – Tokyo, Japan (arrive 1:35 pm) – Flight NW10
Tokyo, Japan (depart 3:40 pm) – Minneapolis, MN (arrive 11:25 am) – Flight NW14
Minneapolis, MN (depart 12:59 pm) – Milwaukee, MN (arrive 2:06 pm) – Flight NW706

We're on our way....

Today, we received our official notice that we can travel to China. We will be leaving for China this Sunday, November 5th out of Milwaukee. Our travels to Sofia will go through Detroit, MI ; Tokyo, Japan and then Guangzhou, China. Our actual travel time to get to China is just under 24 hours (with the stops included) not including the 14 hour time difference (China is 14 hours ahead of our time zone CST). We have never been so excited about a 24 hour travel day, but oh what a destination it will be.

We will keep the blogspot updated while we're in China so check back often to see what's going on with us.

Verbal Travel Approval

On October 20, we received an email from our agency that all the signatures needed for our travel approval were obtained and all we need now is the "official" letter typed. In short, we have a verbal approval but nothing can truly happen until we receive the official letter.

This could happen in a week or it could happen in a month. Either way, Dawn has us completely packed, stacked, and ready to roll. Keep us in your prayers and we'll keep you posted.

October 12 Sofia Update

Well, we didn't get our travel invite to get Sofia before her birthday as we hoped for. Sofia turned one on September 23rd half a world away. We were allowed to send her some gifts to the orphanage , and we did. We remain faithful that God is looking after her and will soon bring our family together.

Now for the good news. Today we recieved an email from our adoption agency that our paperwork had made it through one of the final two steps needed to obtain our invite to travel. What does that mean? It means that we are one step closer to getting the final signature and on our way to bring Sofia home. PLEASE continue to pray for our family and as always, we do appreicate those prayers.

James, Dawn, Zach, Will and Sofia.