Sunday July 28
Last night we ( Sara, our awesome guide, Sherry and myself) took the trek to Walmart (yes a real Walmart) to buy a few things. What an experience:).
Walking through the town is a constant avoidance of getting run over by all the traffic and motorists which seemingly operate by the rules of survival of the fittest! But Sara knows how to navigate and we arrived at the Walmart safely. The store was located on the 3 rd floor of a shopping building and even inside was noisy and crowded just like the streets outside. The store atmosphere was much like that of a street market, with salespeople approaching you to sell you products from the store and if you wanted to bag your groceries you had to pay for each bag!
The city is unbelievably huge and seems to go on forever, as does the population. People are literally everywhere- Sara said it was a population of 6 million (sorry facebook friends for the wrong info i posted on that:) The people here are wonderfully nice, though in passing you won't notice many smiles or laughter. I think that is just the normal social manner. They all seem to take great pride and attention to their jobs- whatever they are doing. I really can't say enough what a wonderful experience we've had and how impressive the Chinese people are. The streets are dirty, extremely cluttered and crowded, yet enchantingly beautiful at the same time. I wish you could be here to see and experience what we are. It truly is a different world.
The city is not without it's heartbreaking scenes though. As we have walked the streets we've passed an elderly woman begging on the street, many other homeless people, a man burned beyond human recognition making noises to beg for money, and a man washing clothes in one of the street drains. We also were able to see the park where there is a monument to the end of the revolution where the communists took control and defeated the nationalist party in 1927. This is a symbol of independence and freedom here.
This morning we went to the bank of China to exchange the money we will need to finish the adoption. Everywhere we go, we are like Mickey and Minnie in Disney world as everyone stares at our light brown and blond hair, the smile, point, and if they know any English they will quickly greet us with hello. The culture is worlds different, but as people, we are no different. Children who were waiting with parents in the bank had just as hard of a time not climbing the walls as our on and of course we were greeted with many smiles and stares there as well.
Our hotel (right picture) has a glass elevator on the outside of the building that you can ride all the way up-28 floors! Of course the boys love that! It reminds me of the flying glass elevator at the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! We can see forever from so high and we even spotted the world's largest ferris wheel here in Nanchang that we had read about before at home!
Now we are relaxing in our super luxurious hotel room, that afforded us a crib to use and a stroller -and in a few hours the orphanage admin will bring our little Kailyn to us, the we'll have to do some paperwork. We are so excited!
PS: Some of us got sleep on the plane and others got a total of 2 hours in a 36 hour period. I will let you guess who slept and who did not...
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