Nanchang

It is Thursday morning here.  Grace had another good night of sleep, (which means we did too.)

Yesterday, we spent the morning visiting a historic sight here in Nanchang.

The Teng Wang Pavilion was built in roughly 600 AD by the Emporer's23rd son.  The building is 9 stories high and situated on the river.  While there, we saw a group of school children all dressed in matching blue and white track suits.  They enjoyed practicing their English on us and all admired Grace.  Everyone comments on Grace's fair complexion.  Apparently, that is seen as very beautiful in China.  We also met a Buddhist nun who played with Grace and commented that it was "destiny" that we all met.  I agree.

During the afternoon we strolled through a pedestrian area near the hotel.

It was lined with food stalls selling lots of exotic looking and smelling things.  There were kabobs with what looked like skinned baby mice.

Luckily we were not hungry.

Last night we decided to venture out to dinner with 3 other families to a French restaurant.  When the cabs arrived to pick us up at the hotel, the taxi driver started yelling at the bellman.  This went on for about 5 minutes and of course it is all in Mandarin.  Apparently, the driver did not want to drive us during rush hour.  We all got out and agreed to wait until 7 pm, after rush hour.  During the second attempt to go to the restaurant, there were no arguments, but the taxis dropped us off in the wrong place.  All thee taxi's pull up,  we get out and walk in the direction the drivers point.  There is a large Chinese restaurant, but nothing French.  At this point we are in a pickle.  We have no ideas where we are in a city of 5 million people with which we cannot communicate.

Luckily, the hostess at the Chinese restaurant spoke a little English.  I gave the card with the address of the place we were looking for.  She disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a waitress.  She shouts out some orders in Chinese and we received the international sign for "follow me" from the waitress.  We all parade down a dark street for about 10 minutes.  Finally we came to Cafe 100, our intended destination.  I tried to tip the waitress, but she would not accept it.  We were all of course incredibly grateful.

We had a cheap and delicious meal and, other than the taxi ride home, the evening was uneventful.  The waiter at the French restaurant went into the street and flagged down 3 taxis for us.  Simple enough, but they all stopped on the opposite side of the street.  We had to take our lives is our hands to get to the other side.  It was also complicated by several cars, bikes and motorcycles driving the wrong way on a one way street.

Once safely into the taxi, it was a harrowing drive back to the hotel.  The driver was listening to some music on the radio, he kept turning the volume higher and was signing along with the music.  The louder the music, the faster he drove, weaving in and out of trucks, buses, cars, bikes, mopeds and pedestrians.  How we did not kill someone in the process is nothing short of a miracle.  We were all happy to arrive safely back at the hotel.

Today, we spent the morning in a village about 30 minutes outside of Nanchang.  As we walked down the street, villagers were drying rice on the side of the street in front of their homes.  Lots of residents came out to talk to Evelyn, our host.  They were fascinated by these strange westerners walking through their town.  We brought candy along to give to the small children.  Everyone was very friendly.  This was definitely a highlight of the trip.

It is now early afternoon and we are back at the hotel.  We just got some photos back from the disposable camera that Christine sent to Grace's foster parents.  We have photos of her foster mom, dad and a little sister.

Very cool.

Christine is feeding Grace her bottle.  I swear she gets more cute every day.  She continues to be happy and healthy.  She has a great personality and loves to smile and laugh.  We can't wait to introduce you to her.

This is our last full day in Nanchang.  We fly to Guangzhou late tomorrow.

Will send another update soon.

Frank and Christine