To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Pig

This morning we walked about 4 blocks from our hotel to a traditional Chinese market. I love that these markets still exist in a huge city (Guangzhou is China's 4th largest city with ~12 million people). Each street seemed to have a theme. We walked the Food and Pet Supplies streets.

Lian was fascinated by cats and dogs on the Pet Supply street, and she wanted to pet every cat we passed. She also pet some puppies. So hopefully that bodes well when she meets our animals at home!

The varities of foodstuffs on sale on Food street boggled the mind. One booth sold 4 kinds of LIVE scorptions (apparently they are tasty when fried). Quite a few booths sold huge fungus pieces - the kind that grow in a half-circle on trees - some of these were easily a 12" diameter. Dried starfish and seahorses were also a popular item. Seahorses seem so bony ... I can't quite imagine that they would taste good, but who knows?

Anyhow, here were some of our market favorites.


An overview shot of the Food street:


Black ants, anyone? FYI, these were dead. Our guide said that people eat them for strength.


Sure to be the next "thing-on-a-stick" hit at the MN state fair:


I still haven't seen the movie, but I can only imagine one could have fun hydrating these and hiding them all over the plane on the long over-seas leg. Plus, I could practice my Samuel L Jackson voice while doing so.


Need a leg? Perhaps useful if you are in a theater production and friends tell you to "break a leg" before opening night.

Panda-monium

Yesterday was US Consulate day. That was the final step in the whole process - the US Consulate issues the child's visa to enter the United States. Final hurdle completed!

Today was an entirely free day, and we headed out to the Guangzhou Safari Zoo. This is one of the best zoos in my experience. The highlight is the safari park. You board a little train/bus and drive through the animal exhibits. Apart from the predators, the animals are roaming freely about. It is so cool to see a herd of giraffes wander by, or camels in the middle of the road. This photo gives you a sense. I can only imagine how amazing a real African safari must be.


And a gratuitous cute baby hippo shot:


There's also a regular zoo in addition to the safari park. The zoo is very nice, with natural habitats for the animals and no stinkiness. They have a couple of exhibit highlights.
One - Pandas and lots of 'em. Super cute.
Two - White tigers - 130 white tigers live here, over 50% of the entire population in the world
Three - "The world's only and cutest koala twins" - Seriously, all koalas look alike. How can you tell that they are twins?

Complimentary cute panda picture:


Girls in front of bamboo:

Red Couch Day

Today was a lazy day, chopped up with random stuff. Poor Eric was still feeling terrible, so he went to see the medical clinic in the hotel here. The doctor didn't have anything conclusive, but gave him Tylenol Cold and some Chinese medicine ... one of the items has a bit of English on it, saying it is Watermelon Drops to be put under the tongue! The good news is that the Tylenol Cold seemed to make him feel a bit better.

Medora was a hoot this morning. When it was time to do her hair, she gave me instructions that rambled on and on and on, involving braids, twisting, and bows, on different parts of the head. I was flummoxed, but she offered "Mom, I'll go draw it for you". And so she did. I challenge you to interpret this into a hairdo.

I ended up dividing her hair down the middle and braiding each side. I then took the ends of each braid and tied them together with a bow. She told me I did great. :)

Lian's baby doll has been a big hit. We had brought a Raggedy Ann doll and some stuffed animals with us, but she had no interest in any of it. This baby doll, however, is a different story. This morning, she was placing her doll's hand on a piece of paper and tracing around it ... just like we'd done with her hands a week ago. Then she'd bring us the tracing and show it to us, which was very sweet. She feeds her baby pretend food, and I showed her how to swaddle it in a bathroom towel. Eric helped her fashion a baby bottle from an empty water bottle. She takes it to bed witih her at naptime and bedtime. Twenty bucks well spent!

We had to return to the medical center this morning to have Lian's TB test read. She did fine walking into the building, but removing her jacket and pushing up her shirt sleeve started the sobbing, poor kiddo. Her test was negative (woohoo) so we got to leave quickly.

Then it was time for Red Couch pictures. Eric still wasn't feeling great, but he toughed it out for the pictures.

Since Lian still has no preference regarding clothing, I let Medora pick out what she and Lian would wear. As you can see, she chose matching outfits. Medora also got fancy silk shoes. Lian wanted NO part of the shoes, preferring her sneakers.

After lunch and a nap for Lian, I decided to kill some time by taking the girls to Carrefour. It is similar to Target or Walmart. Eric was feeling better by this time, and decided to accompany us (hooray!). Last year, I'd gotten some super cute shoes for Medora at Carrefour, and was hoping to find something again. But the shoes were a bust. We did, however, get a small thermos (stainless steel, vacuum sealed for < $3) and children's cartoon DVD that Lian clearly recognized - hopefully we can get it onto our iPhones for the plane ride home!

Still have my hair = Solo parent trip success

With poor Eric still sick in bed, the girls and I boldly ventured out as a threesome. It actually went really well. Medora was a big help, and Lian was a trooper too. I included a picture below, so you can see that I really do still have my hair. First we visited the Temple of Six Banyan Trees, and the girls received a blessing from a Buddhist monk.

Then we went to the Chen House, which was actually a museum. The architectural detailing on the roof was so cool! The girls weren't into this much, so instead, we sat on a stools at a small table and had a pretend tea party. At first, we were pantomiming filling out tea cups and drinking them, but it was clear Lian had no idea what Medora and I were doing. So I drew tea cups on a small scraps of paper and then Lian got the idea. For some reason, this drew the attention of a Chinese woman, who stopped to watch what we were doing. Next thing I knew, she was hollering and waving others over to see and within 60 seconds we had 20+ Chinese women crowding around us. I must have looked a little alarmed, as they all started giving us thumbs-up signs. So I guess they approved of our little tea party. After the Chen House, we went to a "arts and crafts store". I had fully anticipated this would be a disaster, but it was totally fine. The girls were careful as we passed by the breakable stuff at the front of the store, and the back section had goods they could touch - fans, dresses, etc. I planned on buying each girl a little something, based on what interested them. Lian saw a baby doll on a shelf and shreiked with excitement. She ran for it, grabbed it, and immediately started rocking it. It was wildly overpriced ($20 US) but I wasn't going to quibble - she was clearly delighted to have a baby doll. Medora chose a folding fan, which is made of fabric so it should be fairly durable. Poor Eric felt rotten all day. I don't think he left the hotel room at all.

Needles, needles, and more needles

Due to a change in US immigration policy, now all kids over the age of 2 have to get shots before the US will issue an immigration visa. This is a soapbox topic for me, but I won't get on it right now. Despite the fact that she has a complete immunization record AND her orphanage repeated the immunizations over the last two weeks to try to spare her this fate, it doesn't count in the eyes of the US government. After a 90 minute wait in the clinic, poor Lian had to have all of her vaccinations repeated this morning (5 shots) plus a TB test. That's a lot to put a kid through, not the least of which it has got to be tough on their system.

We played at a playground after the shots, which should help reduce soreness. Then she sacked out for a 90 minute nap, after which we had ice cream as a treat.

Poor Eric is coming down with a cold, so wish him speedy healing! Tomorrow, I'm going to be very brave and go solo-parent with the girls on a sightseeing tour. Tune in tomorrow to see if I still have any hair left. :) It includes a Buddhist temple where they say a blessing on the kids, an old house, and a stop at a store billed as "Provincial arts and crafts". We'll be gone all morning, so it will give Eric time to rest up.

Flight to Guangzhou

Lian's first plane ride went well! We had 2.5 hours to wait in the airport, as our plane was late in arriving, but the girls handled it well. The flight itself was uneventful, except for when Lian spilled her orange juice and created a lake in her seat. I sopped up what I could and then used the laminated airline safety cards to create a dry spot for her to sit on for the remainder of the flight. I pity the person who had seat 17F on the next journey for the plane...

Random factoid: airplane in Mandarin sounds like "Fiji"

Here's a couple of cute pictures.

The girls showing off their fingernails.

Chilling at the Nanjing airport with ice cream cones. Lian is not flashing a gang sign, she was making the peace sign just as we snapped the shot. Apparently, this seems to be popular among the Chinese when taking pictures, for whatever reason.

Here's the girls in the Guangzhou airport, riding in style.

Attacked by a giant squid

Eric, being the dear husband that he is, wanted to get me a relaxing massage. He investigated the prices at the very nice (5 star) hotel we are staying in, and found them to be absurdly cheap - a 60 minute massage for less than $20. So tonight, once the kids were asleep, I went to get a massage.

I should have known it was going to be an adventure when the scene unfolded as if in a bad Hollywood movie. "You want a massag-ee?" Uh huh. After some back and forth with pantomimes and typing out numbers on a cell phone, we got it sorted out. About 10 minutes into the massage, as she was kneading my shoulders and back, she stated "you have cups good" and left the room. I was mystified, trying to figure out what on earth this could mean. She returned a minute or two later with a tray containing bamboo cups of various sizes. She told me to relax, I heard a small whoosh, and then a cup was suctioned onto my back. It wasn't unpleasant, and while she worked at applying the cups, I tried to work out how the mechanics of this procedure. My theory is the small whoosh was some sort of fire heating the air in the cup to create the suction.

Once all the cups were on, she covered them with a towel and proceeded to work on my legs. I was mildly concerned about how these cups were going to come off, but that proved to be simple - it felt like she lifted an edge of the cup and the suction released.

After she removed the cups, she pointed to a couple of spots on my back and said "bad". Again, the sense that I was in some cheeseball Hollywood Asian movie.

It wasn't until I got back to our room and checked my back out in a mirror that I realized I had been attacked by a giant squid.

Another Gotcha Day Video

Here's another gotcha day video. How do you get an uncomfortable 4yo to warm up to you? Allow her to use you as a jungle gym.

http://vimeo.com/8237659

Yesterday we went to a bird zoo housed in what was originally a "full" zoo. It was pretty nice, by Chinese standards, but, it did not go so well. Lian was FREAKED by the large walk-in bird area, and would only watch from the other side of the fence while clutching Mom's leg. There were some rather assertive white birds that stood about 14" tall and could hover in your face, hoping for a small fish. Medora braved it with me. There was also an Emu that stood 5' tall. I was a little put off by this, but, we fed him/her some salad and it was all good.

http://vimeo.com/8238196

After that we found some pretty obnoxious kid's rides that girls thought were awesome. Ah, shrill Chinese children's music emenating from tinny-sounding speakers.....feast your ears.

http://vimeo.com/8238329

Girly girls

It takes about 5 minutes with Medora to know she is a girly girl at heart. I'd wondered if Lian would be into it as well.

First morning: Lian watches Medora have her hair done and immediately lines up for her turn. Lian watches Medora apply hair sparkles and tries it herself. Medora shows Lian how to apply lip gloss. Sticker earrings and a matching ring were a hit.

Second morning: Lian lines up first to have her hair done, and carefully picks out hair clips to be applied. On her own, Lian locates the hair glitter and applies it liberally. She also found the lip gloss and applied it before we left the room for our day's activities.

Poor Eric. He knows not what awaits him in approximately 10 years.

Gotcha Day Video

If you'd like to see what it was like meeting Lian for the first time, link over to Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/8234748

Contest!

Can you find what's odd about this picture?!?!!?

It's hard to see. The 6 long skinny items hanging from the clothsline are not dirty socks. They are meat. I think it was bacon.

Random Pictures

Lian is a scissors pro. She'll take your best construction paper and reduce it to confetti in mere moments.

Two sisters watching a movie in bed, day 2.

The girls waiting for the dolphin show to start

Foods I Really Did Try In China, Exhibit E: Chinese Stout

I'm not going to mince any words here. This is the worst beer ever made.

As the label at the bottom of the cap says, it's 100% crap. (You'll just have to trust me, since I'm now fluent in all 2000 characters of Chinese.)

Really, what could I have expected, though? The Chinese are not known for beer, and asking them to create a good stout is a lot to ask. But this is what it tasted like: A slightly sweetened Coors with oodles of caramel color added to make it a Man's Beer.

Unlike a good stout, which is supposed to be a meal in a can, and grow hair on your chest, this one forced me to want to scrub my tongue with a raw head of garlic to remove the flavor.

Do I have any perspective? Could I just be a snob about beer and, in particular, stout beers? Well, let me tell you. Just before sampling this waste of water, I had also sampled Lychee "Beer", Pineapple "Beer Drink", and something simply labeled "Korean Beer." My taste buds had been beaten into submission, reduced to my most basic components. Not unlike a grunt at boot camp, worn down, exhausted, I was ready to accept the next thing handed to me as salvation, gospel. But, in that instant, my commanding officer said "you will now worship Dog Poop." I was repulsed.

Regardless, I travel via the foods I come across, so I'm glad I tried it. Also, I believe you can only understand how good something is until you've had the worst, and only understand how bad something is until you've had the best. Limits, I guess. So, next time you're in China (and I can't encourage you enough to visit) pick up a can of this swill. It'll set ya back about 30 cents. You'll appreciate your next Guinness just that much more.

Vitamin D!!!

Yes, today we saw the sun for the first time in over a week. Hooray! It wasn't Colorado sun, but hey, we're ready to take anything after this long rainy stretch.

We had planned on going to the aquarium this morning, but decided to take advantage of the sun and so went to a large park. In addition to walking paths around a beautiful lake, Bird World was located here. Admission was 5 yuan (~ 80 cents) for each kid, free for parents. Pay another 5 yuan for different kinds of bird food (seeds, fish, and a small dish of salad). Then walk into an aviary and feed the birds. Okay, the bird seed makes sense. And the fish were for the ducks and these quick-moving little white birds. The salad? Oh, that's for the free ranging emu who will come up and eat the salad out of your hand, of course.

After Bird World, we walked quite a ways around the park. Medora gave Lian a crash course in climbing on rocks. Lian isn't as steady as Medora, but she wants to follow exactly the same route as jie jie (big sister). Part of the walk was to check out if the kid-oriented amusement park was open at this time of the year. It was deserted and the rides weren't running. Thank goodness for our guide Min, as she talked to the employees and discovered they were happy to start any ride we wanted. The favorite was a small train, and they gave the girls balls to throw at targets as it went around in an oval pattern. Since we were the only customers, they gave the girls an extra long ride and several buckets of balls to keep chucking. They had a BLAST! My personal favorite was the double-decker merry go round (we rode on the top deck, of course).

Tomorrow, we'll play it by ear again. If the weather is nice, we'll probably do a repeat of the park, as the girls had such a great time - not just the rides, but running and climbing on rocks too. If the weather is rainy, we'll head for the aquarium.

Wheeee!

At the playground

Make that "Li-ehn" not "Li-ohn"

Sorry I am tired tonight so just a short post.

We found out that the Kunshan dialect pronounces Lian's name as "Li-ehn", not "Li-ohn" as I'd heard on language tapes (which were in the Beijing dialect).

The girls are doing great. They get along better than I expected, particularly with the language barrier! They are figuring out how to take turns and share, and it is generally quite peaceful.

Surprise - Lian is only ~ 1.5" shorter than Medora, not the 4" we'd been led to believe. All of the clothes I brought are too small ... the pants end at mid-calf. :)

Today was cold and rainy, so we opted for indoor activities. After some paperwork at the notary, we went to an indoor kids playground across the street from our hotel. The girls LOVED it. Eric took some great video of the two of them playing in a ball pit - we'll have to get that posted soon.

On gotcha day, the orphanage had sent Lian with many of the items we'd sent over the last year. The photo albums appeared to be well loved and the pictures had moved around to new slots. They sent a whole pad of paper with her writings and drawings in it, because I had sent markers in the first care package. She was wearing the ladybug necklace we sent for her birthday, and when asked who sent it, she pointed at me and said "mama". She put it back on right away this morning.

Tonight we were hanging out in the hotel room and I booted the computer. Lian saw it boot up with a picture of Medora (from the tulip and fairy parade) as the desktop wallpaper. She immediately said "jie jie!" and ran to her backpack. She knew exactly which photo album she wanted and opened it to the same picture. I think they must have spent a lot of time showing her the photo albums, since she has them memorized! It was very sweet, and I think the orphanage's prep time helped the transition.

She has acquired two English words already, courtesy of the "Good Dog Carl" book - Dog and Baby.

Sorry, that ended up being much longer than I expected! Turning in now.

PS - next up in the "Foods I Actually Tried in China" series, we turn our attentions to beverages...

Mom reads to the girls

Our connection to Blogger is a bit spotty, but, posting vids to Vimeo is working well. Click the link to watch:

http://vimeo.com/8186177

Gotcha Day!

Yesterday went very well! We have to rush off this morning, but, will post more pictures and videos later on. Here's one from when we got back to the hotel and dug into the playdough. Eric

We meet Lian this afternoon!

We meet our guide at 1:30 PM in the hotel lobby to go to the civil affairs office to meet Lian. She's probably just starting her car ride from Kunshan right about now. I wonder what she's thinking...

Meat Floss

We had this morning free before we meet Lian. Eric needed to check in with his work email and voice mail, so Medora and I went exploring together. We found a western style doughnut and coffee shop and went in for a treat. What a hoot. The doughnuts had great western titles:

• Duran Duran
• Alcatraz
• Bling Bling
• Green Canyon

I bought "Bling Bling" and "Green Canyon", figuring I'd bring half of each back to Eric as a treat.

Oh my.

Green Canyon was fairly straightforward - your typical raised doughnut with a frosting the color of green tea. But it tasted totally normal and the raised doughnut was tasty.

Exhibit D: 12/14/2009 Mid-morning snack: Bling Bling had a light cream/yellow colored frosting, perhaps ecru would describe it well. It appeared to have finely ground peanuts on top. Yum, I thought. Wrong, I was. The stuff on top was meat floss. We've seen it offered on the breakfast buffet but neither of us had braved it yet. Somehow, they take meat and fluff it into little tiny strands/pieces... along the lines of meat cotton candy but less dense. In this case, I think it was pork meat floss. Also, the frosting had a vaguely meat-y flavor about it. I managed one bite. I guess I'm just not a Bling Bling kinda girl. :)

Stinky Tofu with Shrimp (subtitled the lunch that almost was)

Today for lunch, Eric and Medora shared a clam soup. [side note: removing clams from their shells using only stainless steel chopsticks is Advanced.] In typical Medora fashion, she powered down all the clams with relish. Our guide had "Ox intestines soup" and I had "mixed vegetable soup". Eric tried some of the ox intestines soup and declared it tasty. If I'd truly been adventurous I would have ordered "Stinky Tofu with Shrimp". But I am a wimp.

The picture is of Medora's dessert. She saw this pictured on the menu and just had to have it. The left ice cream , which looked like it might be cookies and cream, turned out to some kind of bean (red bean maybe), the middle was mango, and the right was green tea. She ate the green tea and bean ice creams, and wrinkled her nose on the mango. I obligingly helped clean that one up - gee, what are moms for?

Nanjing sight-seeing

We went to Purple Mountain this morning. It is a beautiful urban oasis with beautiful trees. The "Mountain" designation is a bit stretched by Colorado standards, but "Purple Hummock" doesn't have quite the same ring. Sun Yat-Sen's Masoleum is located there, at the top of 392 stairs. Medora made the hike up and down the stairs like a trooper, powered by a small package of fish pieces as a snack.

After seeing Sun Yat-Sen's masoleum, we had coffee and tea in a cafe to warm up. The cafe is your classic tourist trap and had an attached store selling jewelry and other souvenirs. There was a little 4 year old girl hanging out in the store, as her father was working there. She and Medora took to each other immediately and quickly worked out a bunch of silly games to play together.

Next up was viewing the Nanjing City Gate, which was constructed in the 1300s (see photo). It was entertaining to try to explain to Medora what this was about. I settled on "the bad guys wanted to come in and steal their stuff, so this was a way to shut the door on them and say no". Medora had about 50 million questions about this, and it was hilarious to see this from a 4 year old's point of view. It got a little tricky when we came upon an exhibit of cannons and cannon balls. Of all the things we've seen on the trip, the city gate piqued her interest - it elicited the most questions from her and she was reluctant to leave even though we were all chilled.

Tonight and tomorrow it will likely snow! Brrrr.

raining, raining, raining

We found out that we'll meet Lian on Monday afternoon. They will drive her from Kunshan City to Nanjing, a roughly three hour drive. I can only wonder what goes through a four year old's head on a drive like that. Brave kiddo.

It was raining steadily when we woke up this morning and never stopped all day. Nanjing is really quite pretty, and somehow the city of 7.5 million people feels "manageable" after the nonstop craziness of Shanghai.

We went to the Nanjing War Memorial, which was terrific albeit a heavy topic. Rather like seeing the Anne Frank house ... something that you're glad you did but it isn't an easy visit. After that, we went to a working loom museum. It was fascinating to see how they make the elaborate fabrics and tapestries. The machine is 15 feet long and 10 feet high. It takes two people to operate - one sits on top of the machine setting the pattern and the other sits on the ground setting the colors. They do this by memory. Amazing. After that we walked around a lake and temple. We had lunch in a dumpling restaurant - thank goodness for our guide on this one, we couldn't have ordered on our own (no picture menu, no English transations). We ordered a couple different kinds of dumplings, including duck (yes, I tried one of these too!). Very tasty.

Foods I Really Did Try in China, Exhibit C

Exhibit C: 12/12/2009 Breakfast, Nanjing: This is a two part exhibit. Exhibit C.1: is it a worm? Medora thought so. No, it is some random pickled plant part. I did actually eat an entire one. Eric and Medora each tried a tiny bite and declined any further consumption. Exhibit C.2: The slightly-Masonic-shaped pastry with neon green filling (truly, the neon lost something in the picture). If I'd been in a Dan Brown novel, I'm sure the shape of this pastry would have unlocked some clue to the mystery, but alas, all I had was my taste buds. Mystery solved: neon green filling was kiwi.

Foods I Really Did Try in China, Exhibit B, Update 2

So we asked our guide in Nanjing about the dish, hoping to get more details. She concurred that it was chicken. I pressed her for details about the part of the chicken, and she said she didn't know the English word for it, but she pointed to her hip and said it was a bone from that part of the chicken.

MDFI = breaded and deep fried chicken hip bones

Foods I Really Did Try in China, Exhibit B

First, an update on the MDFI in Exhibit B. Our Shanghai guide couldn't definitively identify the dish, but she did clarify it was chicken in origin. She also suggested that it wasn't white breast meat, hinting that it was something like feet. So maybe not pig toes ... maybe chicken toes.

This is what I love about China

Sorry, this is sort of an esoteric post. I took this picture yesterday on our walk back from the Jade Buddha temple in Shanghai. There's something about the contrasts in this picture - skyscrapers, subways, shiny new cars, a creaky old tricycle, and two guys pulling a load of plywood on an ancient cart - that captures the essence of China, and what I love about it.

Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple

On Friday morning in Shanghai we toured the Jade Buddha Temple. It has now been proven that 4 year olds do not appreciate cultural relics, even if they are 36 feet tall.

Friday afternoon, we boarded a high speed train for Nanjing. We splurged on "soft seats" for a whopping $22/adult.

Turning over a new leaf

Those of you who are connected with me on Facebook may be familiar with a photo album I created from our trip in 2008 entitled "Foods I Should Have Tried in Asia But Chickened Out". I decided this trip that I was going to experience China's culinary delights in a more positive frame of mind, so I present to you:

Foods I Really Did Try in China

Exhibit A: 12/10/2009 Breakfast, Shanghai: "Tea Eggs" - hardboiled eggs that are dark brown with a cracked shell. Normally I hate hardboiled eggs, so this was a difficult place to start from, and the mottled brown color that ran through the entire egg didn't help. Tasted like it had been soaking in soy sauce with a hint of fish sauce for some time. I ate a sliver. Eric ate one. Medora liked it and ate two.

Exhibit B: 12/10/2009 Dinner, Shanghai: "The Smell of Summer Celery Palm Middle Baby" - Peanuts, macadamia nuts, celery, red peppers, and a mystery deep fried ingredient (henceforth known as MDFI). Presentation was top-notch (see picture) with a small bouquet glued onto the plate with dough. I ate the peanuts, macadamia nuts, celery, and red peppers with enjoyment. The MDFI did actually go into my mouth, but the texture of the ingredient inside was revolting and I had to get rid of it. The sauce was spicy, so Medora got a pass on this one. Eric ate 5 MDFIs, and said he'd found his culinary limit for texture. After we'd decided to bypass any further samples of the dish, we attempted to analyze the MDFI. Eric was convinced it was a tiny piece of pork, yet strangely full of gristle, like "some random pig part that nobody else wants yet takes a long time to bread and deep fry". This thought was the proverbial snowball tumbling down a mountain, as we dissected the meal's name for clues. Ack, could "middle baby" mean the MDFI was pig toes?!?!







Stay tuned. We are going to show our guide the picture of the menu item with its Chinese name next to it, and we are going to ask our guide to translate it. Please, please, please, don't let it be pig toes!

Shanghai, Day One

After our travel odyssey (depart Denver at 6 AM on Tuesday morning, land in Shanghai at 6 PM on Wednesday), we woke up bright and early on Thursday morning ... at 4 AM. Ugh, jet lag is not pretty. Eric and Medora explored the hotel at that early hour and let me feign sleep for another half hour. Then we killed time until the breakfast buffet opened at 6 AM. The words "killing time" and "6 AM" rarely go together in the same sentence for me!

We started our day with a visit to the Shanghai Children's Hospital to see Medora's finding spot. Today is almost 4 years to the day that Medora was left to be found there. It was bittersweet - hard to imagine what her birth parent(s) felt that day leaving her, and so grateful that she's part of our family now.

Our next stop was a geocache. We had picked up a travel bug (a rubber snake) in Colorado whose goal was to get as far away from Pennsylvania as possible. We figured Shanghai fit that description well, so we moved it along.

The other highlight of the day was the indoor pool. We spent nearly 90 minutes there this afternoon. Medora loves the water!

The days tick down

Today was a busy day of random chores, but tomorrow, the rubber really hits the road. See, we leave at 6am Tuesday, so we have to be at the airport the night before in a hotel to make the check-in. The shuttle bus simply does not run at 3:30am. Argh. So tomorrow we shall pack, which involves obsessing over what is REALLY needed. With today's baggage restrictions, it's worse than packing for a backpacking trip! And, 42 pull-ups are rather voluminous.

Today Medora saw her first real "show" at the Arvada Center for the Arts. A darn good production of _HONK!_. I was expecting community-theater quality and was surprised with top-notch singing. The sets were creative and budget, but who cares! I'll definitely be back for more.

I wonder if Lian has any idea her world is about to flip topsy-turvey in only 7 days......?

Teaser Pics

For Lian's Birthday (11/30), Tara sent a cake to the orphanage. Surprise! We got some photos back! Here's the best one. She's the one in the red jacket. :)