If you have ever gone overseas you know that there are some things that bring you significant comfort in a strange land.

Today we went to Qingziu Shan Mountain, the tallest mountain in Nanning. It is pretty famous in this province and many people travel long distances to come visit. It has several temples and many other attractions. We started the day at the main temple. While not as old as some, it is a large temple that serves 18 gods, 1 major god and 17 minor gods. Wow. Some days it seems hard to keep ONE God happy! They have a ton! People comet to the temple to request favors. They burn incense to please the gods in hopes that they will grant their requests. Here are people lighting a very large incense stick, which the guide told me can cost upwards of $50-60.

You can buy all different sizes at a small booth right in front of the temple.

There is also a small area in front of the temple that I guess allows you to prepare your incense before going in?

Most people opt to purchase several of the smaller incense sticks, which are probably more like $4-5 each.

They have to light them in large fires that are spread throughout the temple grounds. We traveled farther into the temple that was filled with many monks, whom you were not supposed to photograph!

If the incense wasn’t enough, you could also put your request on a card and attach it to a glass candle that you light.

Not sure which option grants you more favor, but as a third option you could buy a ribbon and put your request on that! These gods give you a LOT of options!

The grounds were very beautiful and there were many flowers throughout.

We finally got to the main temple were there were several large Buddha’s that Burma had donated. They were quite impressive, but, again, no photography.

The guide did brave a picture of Brittany, Ali, and I.

At one point Ali was trying to get a better view of the Buddha’s and got yelled at by a lady for not staying in the lines like she was supposed to! Ali was a little embarrassed.

On the way out there are a couple of additional gods, I am assuming part of the original 18, that have nice donation boxes at their base, just in case the incense isn’t enough.

I was quite the hit on the mountain today. Usually it is Brittany that gets the photo requests, but today I was asked several times to take a picture with people. They will probably go home and tell their friends that they met Boomer Esiason on the mountain. Anyway, one guy came back later and asked if he could take a picture with our family, or at least the part willing to post for a picture.

We then traveled down to another area of the mountain that had some really beautiful scenery and some cute little stone statues.

Jessie and Riley spend a few minutes talking while everyone else took a quick bathroom break.

Here is my photographer, Riley, enjoying taking a picture of Brittany practicing her karate kicks!

She then took a few pictures of me.

I told the girls that if they didn’t obey, the policemen around might grab them and take them to jail! Cruel, I know. But effective for a few minutes!

Here is picture of our guide, Irene (that is here Chinese name. She told us her English name, but it really didn’t make much sense to remember that), along with Kelly and Leah.

This is the statue that Leah liked.

Here is Jessie practicing a few kicks of her own!

Kelly and Leah practice some moves with the statues.

Leah really liked this statue. She even gave it a kiss!

So, I will take this time to talk about the girls a little bit. Jessie was a dream child today. She had some issues before going to bed last night. But last night as well as the night before, when choosing which bed she wanted to sleep in, she chose mine. Go figure. We only have four beds, so almost everyone has to double up. As she went to sleep last night, she let me scratch her head until she went to sleep. I have to admit, it was awfully precious. I’m not saying we bonded or anything, but she has been about perfect all day and has been a pretty happy girl.

Riley, on the other hand, has had a pretty tough day. Very melancholy most of the day except for a few times where we got a glimpse of her normal jovial self. Much of the morning she obviously struggled with the transition. These shots were much more typical of the Riley we saw today.

Leah has been Leah! Smiles most of the time. A little impish, fiercely independent when it comes to manning her wheelchair, and a valiant defender of her mom’s Coke when her dad tries to take a drink!

Jessie was a little reluctant to get her picture taken, but she was OK with taking the picture. Kelly said of all the statues for her to want a picture with, this is the obvious choice for her!

We had to work on Riley a little bit, but finally were able to get all the girls to agree to a family picture!! Yay!

Here are just some additional pictures from around this area of the park.

We went to an area with large goldfish that you could feed. The girls really enjoyed how excited the fish would get.

Several of the girls went up 200 steps to the top of the mountain, but Kelly, Leah, Riley and I stayed at the bottom. Leah wanted to take a picture, so Kelly and I posed.

Our final stop was in an area that had stone statues for each of the animals that represent the Chinese zodiac. Except for Riley, who wouldn’t take a picture, the rest of the family posed with their animal.

Our final stop of the day (excpet for lunch at Pizza Hut … we are a little tired of the local Chinese food. Cost me a mint, but was worth every stinking penny!!!!) was at a sign that makes you feel like you are at home. Like the Coke sign, or a Chevrolet emblem.

Gotta love those little reminders of home. And Wal Mart here isn’t a whole lot different from back in the USA … except I have never found broiled chicken’s feet at home!

Tomorrow we pack up (somehow) and move on to Guangzhou to finalize the US portion of the adoption and get everyone’s VISA that is needed to head home! We are now on the downhill slope and we are very excited about that!!

One side note: I got a private message from someone on Facebook and I don’t really know how I got it because it disapeared after read it and they are not a freind of mine. She shared with me how she understood that adoption was good, but that she had been adopted after the parents of her teenage mom demanded that she be put up for adoption. She went on to share that she was raised by a tyranical father and that, once she met her mother when she was 23, she wished her life would have been spent with her rather than the people that adopted her.

While I don’t want to dismiss the life this lady lived, I would submit to you that these girls future is much, much more bleak than just a rough upbringing. UNICEF did a study that showed that if these girls do not get adopted before they age out, 60% of them end up in human trafficing. Of the boys, 70% ended up in prison within five years of leaving the orphanage. I support all adoptions, domestic or international. But I would sumbit to you that an international child, especially a girl from Asia, has the potential for a very bleak future should someone not care enough to answer the call. Our decisions up to and during this trip have not been easy. I can tell you that after several days with these girls that their assimilation into our family and our culture will not come without a lot of tears and frustrations (probably more from me than from them!). I also know that while Riley spent most of the day sullen, I am sitting here in our room right now watching her laugh and laugh as she videos her sister, Brittany, dancing and singing to music on my iPad. There is and will be joy in her life for a long time to come. Her life, and the lives of Leah and Jessie and Mia and Ali and Caleb WILL be better because of our willingness to say “yes”. It will NOT be easy … for them or for us. But they have already given us enough joy to make the pain more than worth it. Any additional joy is just icing on the cake.