July 10 Getting to our Hostel

Our train ride was 6 hour long, and fairly uneventful.  Once we got off the train, we decided to take a taxi to our hotel--actually a hostel-a youth hostel.  Our taxi driver was a trip.  Jorg kept talking to him in Chinese and he would just clamp his mouth shut and shake his head.  He would nod yes and no to whatever Jorg would say to him, so he understood, but he couldn't process the fact that a non-Chinese person was speaking to him in Mandarin and that he could answer back in the same language.  Finally, when he was near our hostel, he pulled over, pulled out his cell phone, talked into it, and the voice recognition translated what he said.  Jorg had already understood what he said as he said it...but they guy said that he didn't know exactly where the hostel was, but that it was somewhere in this block, but that we would have to go look for it ourselves.  We could do that-no problem.​

We started walking down the block until we figured out the numbering system.  Then, we noticed a doorway with a guard/gatekeeper kind of person sitting there.  Jorg went and asked him where the address was, and he indicated that we should go into the doorway, down the hall, and take the elevator to the 5th floor.  The building itself was a bit grim.  Dark, old warn linoleum and carpet on the floor, wall paper that had been peeled and ripped off the walls, some bashed in places on the walls.  We went up the 5th floor and at the end of a dark hallway, we saw our Hostel.  Once we opened the door, we were greeted with hellos and Ni Haos, and a bunch of college aged kids were sitting around eating dinner.  We checked in and were shown our rooms--the girls in a room with 2 beds and Jorg and I with a large bed.  The rooms were clean and simple.  We didn't know when we booked the room that we would have to share the bathrooms (girls and boys separated, several toilet stalls and 2 showers and 4 sinks), but we had done this before and it was only for one night, so it wasn't a big deal at all.  The hostel also had cats-I think 4, but maybe only 3, it was hard to say.  After going out to find some water and some snacks,  we settled in, took a shower and went to bed.  The morning was going to be an early one and we needed to sleep.​

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July 7, A day in Zhao Xing

This day was not full of activity.  We woke late and spent a long morning hanging around the room, relaxing.  Finally we emerged and went to breakfast-noodle soup.  Then we walked around the town a bit and went back to the hotel for a rest--we shouldn't get too tired doing not very much, should we??​

Finally we decided to head out on an adventure.  We would walk to a village of Tang An which was said to be 3 kilometers through the rice terraces.  Laina decided to stay in the room, so it was just Jorg, Min and I.  ​

We set off beyond the town of Zhao Xing and began to walk off into the hills through the rice terraces.  We had the whole valley to ourselves, it seemed.  It took us about 2 hours to hike to the Village of Tong An and we only came across 2 farmers and another traveler.  A Chinese woman who was going the other direction, but was afraid to hike by herself so she walked along with us back from where she came from.  Just as we were entering the town, we came across another group of Chinese travelers going back to Zhao Xing.  The woman hooked up with them and went on her way.  ​

In the village they had a drum tower in which a bunch of the men were hanging out and gabbing.  It didn't seem that women were invited to sit under the drum tower, so Jorg went to go look around it, but Min and I wandered down the street.  There wasn't much going on in the village, some ladies selling things, a few shops open, a restaurant for travelers, but most people were just sitting around chatting.  We walked through, took a few photos and then waited for a shuttle to take us down the hill to another bus which would take us back to Zhao Xing.​

At the bottom of the hill there was a group of women, all in traditional dress that were gathered in a pagoda like structure, singing songs for a camera crew.  WE were able to listen to their songs while we waited for our other bus.​

While waiting for the bus, a man approached Jorg and told him that we needed to pay 5 Yuan to ride the bus down from the village.  The man pointed at the sign which did say that the bus was 5 yuan each way.  Jorg told the man that he wouldn't give him any money, because he wasn't wearing any official clothes, only a t-shirt.  The man then muttered under his breath, something about getting money from the Lau Wai, and fetched his official button up shirt with a badge and stripes on the sleeve from the pagoda.  After the man had on his official shirt, he went to Jorg again and told him to pay for his ride down.  Then, Jorg relented and gave him the money.​

Once we were back to Zhao Xing, we picked up Laina, went to dinner and then went to bed.​

Behind in Blogging

I'm behind in my blog, not surprisingly...I'm going to give a shortened bullet point condensed version at the moment and then I'll write more on the train to Chengdu.

*On the 5th we went to visit Shigu academy, one of the 4 ancient schools of china.

*On the 6th we left Hengyang and traveled by train to ZhaoXing City. We saw a Dong Minority musical performance.

*On the 7th we hiked out to another village called "Tong An". We took a shuttle bus home and saw a small musical performance waiting for the shuttle.

*On the 8th (today, is the 8th as I write this) we are traveling to the Jiabang rice terraces. We will stay there one night and then come back to Zhao Xing.

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July 4, Hengyang Orphanage

July 4 trip to Hengyang​

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We woke at 7:00 to pack up and meet the driver/guide and they picked us up at about 8:00.   We loaded into a VW van and started down the highway due south from Changsha.  Our journey would take about 3 hours all told.  On the way we chatted and got to know our guide a bit.  He has worked in tourism for the past 25 years or so.  He used to work exclusively in the adoption industry and now, with the decline in adoption numbers, he us doing more family tours back to China such as ours, and regular tour groups.  He said he has only helped 2 families through the  adoption process of a child in the past 6 months.  We also learned that he knew Dr. Susan, one of our facilitators when we adopted both Laina and Min.  He called her on his phone and we had a video chat!  She lives in Beijing with her family and continues to work with adoptive families.  ​

Before we arrived at the orphanage, I told our guide (named "Smile") about our experience with the gifts that we gave to the Hangzhou orphanage and how it seemed like a really bad gift that they didn't really want.    The guide did think it was a good idea to bring something, but suggested that we stop and get a fruit basket to bring with us instead.  We all thought that was a good gift, so before we got to the orphanage, we found a little fruit market in a very small village.  The woman who ran the fruit market was very good natured and helpful, she went into the back, found us a big basket and recommended some beautiful fruits to put in.  We got dragon fruit, pears, grapes, oranges, apples, Hami melon, and cantaloupe.  Then she wrapped the basket in a big plastic bag with little hearts on it and then she found a bow to go around the handle.  The total cost was a little bit more than $10, but even though it wasn't an expensive gift, it was gift that the caregivers could all share, and we were happy with that.  ​

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At the orphanage, we were first ushered into a meeting room where were warmly welcomed by the assistant director.  We were given some tea and some fruit to snack on.  We were shown Laina's original documents, and we also were given a "guest book" where other families that have visited wrote down their family information and then the orphanage would post a picture.  We, of course, then had to pose for a photo.  Then, we were taken on a tour of the facility.  The orphanage is home to all ages of people of all different ability levels.  Most of the children at the orphanage have special needs of some kind.  At any time, in the care rooms, they try to have a ratio of 6:1.  The children looked well fed, clean, well clothed and well cared for.  The girls all had hair combed and styled, and the boys all had neat haircuts.  There was one child who was skeletally thin, but this child probably also has some medical needs that make it difficult to properly feed.  Here at home, they probably would have had a PE tube set, but that's probably just not done here.​

The orphanage building itself is new and was built in 2006-8.  The old building is still on the same property, but it was damaged in a landslide, and was too old to be functional even if it was repaired.  It still is standing, but it doesn't get used for anything.  We learned that Laina would have lived on the 3rd floor of that building with the other girls that were adopted with her.​

We also learned that the HengYang Orphanage was one of the orphanages under the care of a charitable organization called "International China Concern" that is based out of Australia.  The woman who is the representative of that organization was there at the orphanage and we had the chance to talk to her.  They provide Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy and Special Education services to the residents and also they have staffings on each resident to make sure their needs are being addressed.  There was a visiting Speech Therapist there and I was invited to come and share my knowledge with them sometime as a short term volunteer.  Perhaps I will do that some day??!!  I also told them that I would try and make a connection for them through Loma Linda to see if there were any speech therapists that speak Chinese that they know of. ​

Soon it was time for lunch so we all piled in to the van and went to a restaurant.  We had jiaozi (dumplings), meatball soup, fish, vegetables, pig feet, and some spicy chicken.  It was fine lunch.  

LAINA'S FINDING SPOT

After lunch, our guide took us to the location we could best guess was Laina's finding spot. The government building that used to be located there had been torn down within the last 6 months and was just a dirt lot now.  Her paperwork said that she was found across from this building on the walkway by the river.  We asked a lady if the dirt lot was the old government building and she confirmed that is was.  So we crossed the street and there were two possible places-along the sidewalk by the street, or down by the river.  We will never know which one, but we took pictures of both places.​

Then, we said our good-byes, thanked our guides and were driven to our hotel.​

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At the hotel we settled in and took a rest.  Soon Laina got bored and wanted to shopping for snacks.  We walked around the block and found some chips, and sweets.  We walked back to our hotel and then took a nap until dinner time.  For dinner we had Xiaolong bao, green beans, and hot and sour potatoes (Suan La Tu dou si).  ​

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Our Hotel was called the Ming Yi hotel and it was NICE!!  It was not really set up for foreigners, in that the staff spoke only Chinese, but that's not a problem for Jorg.  Our rooms were well appointed with all the little things that make a nice hotel nice.  Slippers, puffy pillows, flat screen TV, white bath robes, coffee and tea, fruit and cake at bedtime, breakfast buffet in the morning.  The BEST thing about the hotel is they offed us FREE LAUNDRY SERVICE!!!  They didn't have a drier, but they could wash our clothes, and they brought us a drying rack and a bunch of hangers where we could hang our clothes over night and they were dry by morning.  So great!!​

July 3, Travel Day

We had to wake a little early, about 7 to pack and get ready to go to the train station.  We hailed a cab and had to suffer the 30 minute trip to the station with a carry on rollie suitcase across our laps because the trunk had some extra stuff in it.  This was a terrible offense according to Laina who whined the whole time.

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At the train station, we had plenty of time to get some breakfast (youtiao, sticky rice roll with some kind of fried meat inside, fresh hot soymilk and dumplings).  Then we loaded the train (high speed train) and traveled about 3 hours to the city of Changsha.  Once in Changsha we took the metro to our hotel and settled down for a bit.  Soon it was time to go walk around and find some food.  We took the metro back to a plaza called "Wu Yi plaza" (literally May 1st plaza--Labor Day).  This was a huge shopping district that was absolutely filled with people.  We didn't find any food that we were willing to either eat or stand in line for, so we walked to some smaller streets until we could find a small hole in the wall restaurant we liked the feeling of.  Finally we found one--it held about 8 tables and each table could hold about 6 people.  We ordered some dish with chicken and two vegetable dishes.  We ate pretty much every bite...and paid about 8 dollars for it.​

We took the metro back to our hotel and settled in for the night.  We'd have to wake a bit early to meet our guide and driver for the orphanage visit the next day.​

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About Chansha​

We didn't spend too much time in Chansha this trip because we had been there several times before, most importantly for Laina's adoption trip.  We came to the adoption trip about 5 days before all the other families and had traveled around the city and the surrounding countryside before we picked Laina up.  Then, on our last trip back to China with the girls, we also traveled through Changsha on our way to Beijing, and we weren't interested in staying in the town any more than we needed to.  The tour agency that supplied us a guide and a driver to the Hengyang orphanage was based out of Changsha and they were going to drive from Hengyang to Changsha regardless of where we spent the night, so we decided that we would meet our guide there in Changsha and drive down to Hangyang with them.  It gave us a chance to chat a bit with him and also to see the countryside a little better.  ​

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Bullet Points

Today went quickly,  but not much happened.   After breakfast of xiaolongbao, we took a taxi to a department store that turned out to be a regular mall, so we walked around a bit and found a Carrefour- a kind of wallmart style store.   We got some school supplies, Some baby formula, some toys and some diapers to give to the social welfare agency. It seems to small of a gift,  but how much is enough? After shopping we walked to a market to look around, and we bought a mangosteen just to try (delicious).  Then we walked along the lake a bit more.   Finally,  we took a taxi back to the hotel,  had a rest and went to dinner (baozi and liangpi).  Now it's bedtime and we all feel a little anxious about tomorrow.

One funny thing,  today we ran into English Corner and talked to those people for a long time.   It's fun to answer their questions for a while.  One of the men has a child who is a doctor at Loma Linda medical center and lives in Irvine! 

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Tuesday July 2

This day was spent souvenir shopping.  Rather dull--but we had fun with it.  Laina wanted a bracelet, Min wanted a silk scarf, and Jorg and I just wanted to walk around.  We went to a shopping district that was a replica of an old street, and was interesting just to walk around.  We stopped in a little stall to have some spicy noodles and some "soup dumplings" (Xiao long bao) and also had some coconut juice for dessert.

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After nap Min, Jorg and I walked down to the lake and enjoyed the lights of the city.​

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THE CAT STORY​

The hotel we're staying at has a kitten that lives in the courtyard.  He's a friendly kitten, and enjoys the attention of guests and plays around, catching bugs and chasing unseen things.  At night, Min and I were sitting outside just enjoying the evening and a couple of ladies passed by.  They noticed the kitten and Min said that one lady said to the other lady, "Look, that kitten is cute".  And the other lady said, "Yes, it will taste good".  The first lady said, "You should just take it".  So the lady scooped the kitten up and started walking away with it.  At this time, I went to the desk man and told him that a woman took the kitten.  The desk man ran out of the office, out of the courtyard and chased down the two women and retrieved the kitten.  I told him what the women said, that the kitten would taste good...and he didn't believe me.  ​

With the President

Toys in the playroom.

To the Social Welfare Institute

Our driver came and picked us up in a van at 9:30 AM.  We drove about a half an hour to the compound and began our tour.  The woman who met us there was a representative of the SWI, but I never learned her name, nor what her position was.  She asked "Who is Zhao Min?" , and we identified Min and the representative greeted her.  And then we began our tour.  We started in a school building.  We passed a very big physical therapy room with 6 boys working on their physical therapists with teachers.  They all had orthotic braces on either their arms, feet/legs or both.  One boy was strapped into a stander and was working on a computer game.  The room had puzzle padding from wall to wall and there was holding rails all around the room.  Their wheel chairs were all parked outside, and the chairs looked well padded and in good condition.  We passed a classroom with about 25 kids in it, all boys.  They looked up and waved, but were well behaved, and mostly paid attention to their work.

Further along we went into the kitchen where there were a group of boys learning to cook.  They all had aprons, face masks and plastic gloves on.  We couldn't tell what they were cooking, since they hadn't really started yet.  One of the boys was one that I recognized from when Min was young.  I have a picture of him with her in her preschool class.  I'm sure it's the same boy.  He's 17 years old now and lives at the SWI and will for the rest of his life. ​

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We had a look at one of the dormitories, with the little beds lined up and blankets folded up at the foot.  There was also a baby room with cribs lined up, but the babies were not there, they were all up and in the play room having therapy and floor time.  I saw about 15 babies (aged 3 months to 1.5 years about) and about 5 staff.  ​

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Further along we walked along an outside pathway and they had a picture history of the SWI on the wall, marking the first building and the next one, built in 1970 (where Min was) and then the current one.  They had a big photo of the president of China coming to visit in 2006, and I recognized a boy in the photo, he was adopted by Nicole, who traveled to get her son soon after we adopted Min.  I took a photo of it so she could have another precious baby picture...with the president of China in it, too.​

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We took a few pictures of Min with the statue that was in the old SWI and then the tour of the facility  was over and it was time to go see Min's finding spot.  They took us to the gate of the apartment compound where she was found and we walked around there for about 10 minutes.  Then it was time for lunch.  They took us to a very large restaurant and helped us order food and when we were done eating it was time to go back to our hotel. ​

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SO let's unwrap this a bit...  Was it "Worth it"?  We had to pay a rather big fee to get this tour, and it lasted for a little more than 4 hours.  If we hadn't paid, we wouldn't have been able to go in, but was it worth it to go in??  I have to ask Min...She said that she found it valuable to go in and tour the facility even though she has no connection to the particular location.  If she found value in the experience, then I suppose it was worth it.​

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The rest of the afternoon was spent going to the bank, napping and eating dinner.  We were going to go to the lake, but we felt sleepy and turned in early.  ​

Travel and Saturday June 29

Our trip to the airport was fairly uneventful.  Our flight was leaving at 2:00 AM Friday morning, and we thought that we'd have tons of time if we left our house at 9:30.  It turned out that it was just enough time, because the traffic from the freeway to the terminal was so slow, it took a half an hour just to navigate that distance.  Anyway, we didn't have very much down time before they boarded the airplane.  Nothing happened on the airplane that is worth writing about.  We all slept and ate and it was fine.  Our flight was 13 hours long and we landed in Hangzhou on time, passed easily through immigration and customs, got a taxi and found our hotel.  We're staying in a little "boutique" hotel called Snail Hotel on the edge of Xihu lake.  You can have a look at it at this link, I think:  http://www.ehangzhou.gov.cn/2018-06/14/c_242876.htm  The bed is nice and hard, like a plywood box with a thin layer of padding on it.  The girls  have a room with 2 beds and ours has 1.  Only one of the rooms was ready for us when we arrived at the hotel at 8 AM, but we expected that we wouldn't be able to get into any room until 2 in the afternoon, so we were able to dump our things in the one room, change clothes, comb hair, brush teeth and head out for a walk around.  First task was to get money.   Paying for things in China has become much more convenient if you're Chinese.  The locals all pay by bleeping a QR code with their cell phone.  Because you can only do this if you have a Chinese phone and a Chinese bank account, we have to use cash, and many stores don't like cash anymore.  This may or may not concern you depending on your feelings towards the new world order, cashless societies and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.  For us, it's just a hassle.  So we found a bank of China and got some cash to pay for our hotel, some train tickets and some food.  Breakfast for us was egg crepes (Jianbing-one of my most favorite Chinese foods that you hardly can find in the States).  It's a fairly traditional crepe, with an egg cracked onto it, and spread out over the crepe.  Some sauces are added (usually one salty, like hoisin sauce and some spicy sauce), then some onion, cabbage and then a crispy fried dough stick.  So delicious.  We all had one.  Then we walked around the Xihu lake.  It's lotus blossom time and there are many people coming to enjoy the lake.  At the moment, we're taking a siesta, and will then head out for some dinner and probably call it a day.  The weather is very moist.  It's warm and humid.  We got some rain today, but it was mostly just drops here and there, not worth talking about.  Tomorrow we have a mission: To buy school supplies for the Orphanage/Social Welfare Institute that we will be visiting on Monday.  On Monday we will be going to go have a look at Min's original paperwork file to see what we can see.  We'll be doing the same for Laina on Thursday.  We would like to be able to meet Min's foster family, but we don't know if that's an option at this point.  We won't know until we get there.  The actual orphanage that Min lived at is no longer in service.  It was mothballed soon after we adopted her, so the place we're going she has absolutely no connection to and we don't even know if any of the staff is the same.  We may be able to go back to her finding spot, too.  We'll see what they have worked up for us.  We had to arrange this all through an organization that paves the way and makes the connections with the orphanages.   We don't really know what to expect, and we're trying to keep an open mind about things.  They suggested we bring a gift with us, and they suggested school supplies, and so that is what we're going to try and look for tomorrow.  I did take some photos today, but only with my phone, and my phone doesn't have hotel wifi and there's a bunch of other reasons I don't have pictures, but I'll try to post something tomorrow.

Hangzhou Snail Hotel Located at Qingzhiwu village in Xihu district, Snail Hotel enjoys a favorable location as it is adjacent to the Huanglong business area, West Lake scenic spot and the original campus of Zhejiang University. www.ehangzhou.gov.cn

Aaaaaaand....We're off

Our plane boards in an hour or so and leaves at 2 AM.  We'll be landing in Hangzhou and wil spend the first few days there.  One of the things we'll be doing is visiting an Orphanage and seeing Min's original file.   It will be interesting to see what we find.  I'd write more,  but I'm poking this out on my phone and it's so slow.   More later when I get my laptop to write on.

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So... all systems are go.

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Tomatoes!

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Getting the Blog Fired Up Again

It's time for some new adventures!!  Keep watching this space!!