October 26,2008

Hey all, we are doing well here in Nanjing. We finish up the adoption in Guanzhou which is southeast if here a couple of hours by plane. There is a trade show in Guanzhou right now. The hotel rooms are around $300 a night so they kept us here a few extra days to avoid the expensive hotel stay. We are enjoying the area but are anxious to finish up. We miss our kiddos at home! We go to the orphanage tomorrow. It is about 3 hours by car. Aron is a little concerned about the visit. AJ is doing so well and Aron doesn't want him to be confused. I think it's important to see where our little man lived and talk with his nannies. We have some questions for them and things that AJ might want to know when he is older. Pray that all will go well and AJ will not cry when we leave. I think it might be good for him to say goodbye and for us to take him away.

Aron has a little cough and runny nose so he decided to walk to the pharmacy today. Well, he made it and the sweet little Chinese girls couldn't understand him so he coughed for them and they nodded their heads and led him to some medicine. He brought it back to the hotel and every last word on the package is in chinese. I told him if he takes it he may never wake up. Ancient Chinese secrets might be in that box. We will show it to our guide tomorrow and ask her what's in it. Maybe it will cause him to start speaking mandarin, who knows!

We ran out of calling cards and so we asked the front desk where to go to get more. She wrote down the address so that we could give it to the cab driver. Well, we hailed a cab and showed him the paper. We could tell that he wasn't sure about taking us and another man came up and looked at the address and they started to shout at each other. So Aron said"get out of the cab". I grabbed our 34 pound baby and the backpack and in one smooth motion jumped out of the cab. Aron was outside trying to figure out what was going on. When he figured out that we should not drive with him and I jumped out, the cab driver drove away. So, we went back into the hotel and went to the business office. One of the clerks there spoke English pretty well and called a cab for us. The bellboy came and got us from the office and told the driver where we needed to go and to wait there and bring us back. It was a good distance away (about 20 mins.), but finally we made it. After 3 different clerks helped us and 2 separate offices, we successfully communicated that we needed phone cards. We took our old one to show them, but they thought something was wrong with it and that we needed help getting it to work. Aron was able to tell them that it was all used up and we needed more cards. Well, they sold us 3 new cards for 120 yuan (about $20). The cards have 100 yuan printed on each card. They gave us a deal I guess. Anyway, we will get about 120 minutes for that $20 plus $10 cab fare. Not bad. It was definitely another China adventure. I'm not sure I want to ride in a cab again. By the way, seatbelts are optional and no carseats here. I held onto AJ for dear life.

We went to the zoo today. It was just a small one but AJ and the other family here with us enjoyed it. They usually have pandas at the zoo but not today. Our guide was unsure why they were not there.Bummer, I wanted AJ to see the pandas. We had fun seeing the monkeys and the tiger show. Man, I'm not sure they pay that young guy who "trains" the tigers enough money. He's probably 100 lbs. soaking wet and in the caged area with about 10 tigers. Scary!! They also had trained monkeys and bears. They rode bicycles. It was pretty cute.

Tonight we went to this amazing mall. It's right around the corner from our hotel. It has Nike and Adidas and many cool stores. It's 5 stories high with fountains and waterfalls. Just beautiful. We ate at Papa Johns for supper. Yummy! Well, we have to call home with those crazy cards we worked so hard for.