The Juicy Details

There seems to be an air of mystery about what the First Decree is like and what happens after the First Decree, so I'll do what I can to give you all the juicy details from my point of view as we go through the process.

Hopefully you've already read my rendition of what the First Decree means and also how smoothly (haha) we handled it. The day after we received the news, we received a "Travel Packet" from our agency. The Travel Packet seems like one of the Holy Grails of the International adoption process: a right of passage that means you're almost there. I hate to be the one to make it anything less than a thrill to open when it's your turn, so if you don't want me to spoil the surprise, stop reading this post now.

If you're still reading you're about to learn the exciting contents of the Travel Packet, so here's one last warning and chance to stop reading.

Still here? Ok, here it is, the contents of the Travel Packet:

[Drum roll, please!]

1. A bill! That's right. Isn't that exciting? Yes, we received a bill and a rather large one at that.
2. A description of the court process. By now you're already familiar with that. (If not, see any number of earlier posts for highlights.)
3. A section on what to take with us along with a detailed checklist. This section also includes information on currency and hotels. The information on hotels goes into great detail on each one including rates and pictures for each.
4. A description of the orphanage and the people that work there.
5. A description of the Visa procedure.
6. Important phone numbers and helpful addresses (written in Mandarin and English) to give to cab drivers.
7. A map of Taiwan and information on things to see and do.
8. Some nice travel stories.

That's it! No big mystery, but a lot of fun to receive and go through. It covers all the details we'll need for our trip except when the trip will be. We'll also be meeting with the agency to answer any additional questions and to go over everything again in great detail. I've been promised the level of detail we receive in our meeting will be a description of our time in Taiwan almost to the minute and probably more than we want. We are exceedingly detail-oriented, so I doubt it will be more than we want, but we're looking forward to it anyway!