A Looooong Day

Wow, today was a long one. Though I believe one family is not back yet from their trip so I should stop complaining. Today we drove to Jinhua City. This small city holds 4 million. ...4 million. Ric told Wendy our guide, who happens to be from Jinhua, that 4 million is not small from where we come from. :-) I was quiet surprised. I had been told it was a small rural town. Maybe in this part of the world it is. It seemed quite the big city to us. They have a Wal-Mart that is completely underground, except the entrance. ;-) We didn't go in that. We went to apply for the passport only to be met by the man in charge of Children's Department who is very nice. It is so obvious how much he cares for the kids. Autumn calls him uncle along with the other kids. Well he had just finished with the paperwork for us, so we were free to go to the orphanage. Autumn's orphanage is brand new. Everyone moved from the inner city to a subburb area newly developed with government buildings. Her's is a SWI, Social Welfare Institute and includes the elderly and handicap. I know at least three very large buildings were a part of it. The kids are in one building, elderly in another, and so on. Then they have a building that is almost like a recreation center. It even has a library! We went to the kids building and met her friends who she has grown up with. Yes, all you Jinhua families I saw all your kiddos and they are happy kids. Saw all of them smile if not even laugh at times. We even have a video of the kids singing. If Ric cannot post it, we will email it to you. They were in the lesson room, then went off to the dining room to eat lunch. Autumn would go sit in her place in whatever room we were visiting. After this we went to lunch. Didn't realize we were doing that. It was a nice surprise. The food was good and I was sooo glad we had a separate room for us to eat in. I can only take so much staring being the only people in the town with big noses. :-) We had shrimp kabobs. Let me just say that taking them off the skewer, pulling the legs, beheading it and shelling it isn't the normal way to eat these little guys. I look over at Wendy one time and she bit the head off, nicely spit it on the plate, then proceeded to shell and de-tail it with her teeth. Interesting... No I didn't summon the courage to change my way of doing it. However, I did try cooked pumkin pieces, the spicy watermellon rinds, the potatoe noodles (very good!), the vegetable stuff spring rolls, and the great roasted chicken. Very good and all homecooked from local produce.

After this we headed home, sleeping on and off for our 2.5 hours drive. Anna Lin is having a time adjusting to the time difference especially in the afternoons. She'll go to to sleep but something will wake her up and she just cries. She wants to sleep so bad. (Note the sleep while coloring picture with the previous blog :-) She still has some of that cold she had right before we left. So glad we went to the doctor and that I brought cough syrup. (Traveling families...bring a variety of medicines for a variety of things cause you just don't know what you'll get at any point in the process.) Autumn is doing well. SHe was a little shocked when she woke up this morning but quickly rebounded. She was quiet all of the way to Jinhua. Wendy had told her that is where we were going. She sat on my lap the whole way. When the children's program manager came into the car he tried to get her to go to him and she stayed put with me after giving him a quick hug. He fussed at her about it, good-heartedly. :-) This man has a sense of humor, laughing and joking a lot with the kids. She was a little gloomy on the way home and soon fell asleep. Since then all has been well. We're seeing more smiles and she continues to follow me around at times, slowly warming up to Ric. Ric was messing with two of her panda bears and she ended up taking all of her stuff off the bed he was on then moving it to the one I was on. It was funny. She is in bed now with Anna Lin giggling. And that is where I'm heading now as well.
Angi