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.
| 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 |
