Let me start by saying I have zero pictures to share.\u00c2\u00a0 The internet isn’t working well today and not allowing us to download pictures.\u00c2\u00a0 We will try again in a few hours and hopefully I can add some pics to this post then.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you get past the dissapointment, please read on.<\/p>\n
It’s another free day for us in Hefei.\u00c2\u00a0 Our guide is taking the other 2 families to visit their daughters orphanage, so we’ve had nothing scheduled today.\u00c2\u00a0 We went to the hotel dining area for breakfast, like we’ve done every morning since we’ve been here.\u00c2\u00a0 The ladies know us well by now, seat us in the same area and then rush about to find us a high chair.\u00c2\u00a0 The breakfast here is good, lots of choices…some western (bacon, poached eggs, cereals, lots of breads and pastries) and lots of Chinese (fried rice, noodles, and many unidentifiable selections….such as “grow eggs”).\u00c2\u00a0 Lainey’s breakfast includes banana bread, fried rice, mandarin oranges, congee with oatmeal, and bites of daddy’s poached egg.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite is the sugared donuts.\u00c2\u00a0 And, this sort of cheerio-like cereal that’s denser and has a brown sugar taste to it.<\/p>\n
After breakfast, we went upstairs for some play time and a diaper change and then we headed to a garden that’s a short distance from our hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 We borrowed a stroller, which Lainey wasn’t thrilled with at first, but she finally settled in (it helped that she had a cracker in both hands).\u00c2\u00a0 Our guide told us that we would attract a lot of attention here in Hefei, as there just aren’t foreigners here.\u00c2\u00a0 Hefei isn’t exactly a tourist trap.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone looks at us, all in friendly curiosity.\u00c2\u00a0 They look at us, and then down to Lainey.\u00c2\u00a0 Hmmm…American couple, Chinese baby.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re supposed to wear our CCAI lanyards that explain in Chinese “our names are…we’re here to adopt this child, etc.”\u00c2\u00a0 We forgot them today.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a very nice young man who we ended up walking beside, and he desperately wanted to talk with us but knew no English at all.\u00c2\u00a0 We were able to fumble ourselves around explaining that we were Americans and Randy tried to introduce himself.\u00c2\u00a0 We think he told us his name too, but we’re not sure.\u00c2\u00a0 We THINK he went by Ping Liang, or something similar.\u00c2\u00a0 We’d love to be able to talk more with the people here, they are so nice.\u00c2\u00a0 With all the attention, I joked with Randy today that this must be a little what it feels like to be a celebrity.\u00c2\u00a0 I can honestly say I’ve never turned heads at a KFC until today when the WHOLE restaurant turned to watch us as we walked up to the counter.\u00c2\u00a0 (Yes, there is a KFC here, right beside the Lotus Center…does it taste like KFC?\u00c2\u00a0 Not exactly, it was spicier and the potatoes had more pepper.\u00c2\u00a0 We are pretty sure it was chicken. :)<\/p>\n
While at the garden, we saw several small groups of children who were obviously at the park on sort of a “field trip”.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of boys and only a few girls, which only makes sense with the way their population control works.\u00c2\u00a0 We also saw a very attractive newswoman and her camera man looking for a story at the park . . . apparently we were her best option.\u00c2\u00a0 She came up and asked Randy, through pretty broken English, who we were, where we were from, why we were at the park, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 Then she asked if he could do the interview again on camera.\u00c2\u00a0 Who were we to say “no”?\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t read in our CCAI guide book that it would be bad to wind up on the 6:30 news, so I hope that was o.k.<\/p>\n
After exploring the garden (not sure why it’s called that, I saw no evidence of anything living…though, everything here is dead either from the weather or the polution – could be both), we went back to the Lotus Center for more bread (PB&J in the hotel is becoming a staple meal for us) and a few more items.\u00c2\u00a0 We attracted more attention there too.\u00c2\u00a0 Randy loves waving at the teenagers, and he had this group of girls giggling their heads off.\u00c2\u00a0 Michael Jordan and Tom Cruise, all wrapped up in one guy.\u00c2\u00a0 He might decide to live here.<\/p>\n
Back at the hotel, we ate lunch and put Lainey down for a nap.\u00c2\u00a0 She fought this one hard, but we think it’s because she was off schedule due to our lazy outing today.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s snoozing away now.<\/p>\n
Let me back up to the playtime after breakfast today.\u00c2\u00a0 Lainey made some MAJOR\u00c2\u00a0strides in warming up and letting her guard down today.\u00c2\u00a0 She had much better explorative play…checking out more toys, crawling after toys, throwing them under her crib, climbing under to get them, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 She decided today was the day to start walking, too, and when we put on her coat to go get breakfast (it’s always quite cold in the lobby), she stood up and quickly walked to the door.\u00c2\u00a0 Unreal.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, and did I mention we got MAJOR smiles today?!\u00c2\u00a0 Real, honest to goodness smiles.\u00c2\u00a0 Her whole face lights up.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh….and she LAUGHED! \u00c2\u00a0A short giggle, as I was playing with her.\u00c2\u00a0 We are beside ourselves with joy and thankfulness to see this true side of our daughter. We were a little down yesterday, and boy did today make up for that.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, we leave at 8:30 for our visit to the orphanage.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re both excited and a little apprehensive about it.\u00c2\u00a0 We realize it will be hard seeing where she spent the first part of her life, not to mention seeing all the little ones still waiting for their chance.\u00c2\u00a0 We would appreciate prayers…and we are still amazed and humbled by the comments and prayers that are being said for us.\u00c2\u00a0 We feel very covered by you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let me start by saying I have zero pictures to share.\u00c2\u00a0 The internet isn’t working well today and not allowing us to download pictures.\u00c2\u00a0 We will try again in a few hours and hopefully I can add some pics to this post then.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you get past the dissapointment, please read on. It’s another free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}