I think I should let Adam write all of our posts! He did such a great job describing our day yesterday. My brain has not been functioning well enough to put together a coherent thought. We were up at 3:30am again – wide awake! Wuhan will be cool (highs in the 40s) and rainy all week, so no ‘sunshine therapy’ to reset our clocks.
I wanted to mention a few things about our Shanghai trip before I forget about it. Ben sketching at YuYuan garden piqued the interest of many of the Chinese visitors (thanks for the new sketchbook, Rob, Joanie, Zachary and Hope)! Eliana just wanted to run and play! We were worried she would tumble into the water chasing after the Koi fish. She also found another little Chinese child to chase around and get into trouble with. I thought the picture of her sticking her head in the stone container was SO funny! I think I forgot to mention the tea demonstration and how absolutely fascinated Eliana was, especially with the Rome and Juliet varieties of tea, where a full flower ‘blooms’ in front of your eyes in the hot water. She was quite serious while sampling all the varieties. We bought several types, including both Romeo & Juliet, ginseng and black tea with something I am forgetting and rose to bring home and perhaps to have a little tea party in the hotel room while we are here.
Our guide here in Wuhan, Shirley, is wonderful. She met Mei Mei last year in March and went to visit her again recently, so it is great that Mei Mei will have a familiar person when we meet her. She knows we are coming and is as prepared as possible. I can’t even imagine what she and her foster family must be feeling this morning. I imagine that she is quite nervous and scared, and sad to be separating from her foster family. The female staff at the hotel are all very fascinated by Eliana and that we are adopting another Chinese daughter. We will have many willing translators here anytime we need them! The executive lounge is open 6am – midnight and there is always an English/Mandarin speaking hostess available. That may come in quite handy if we need something after Shirley is gone! Shirley has also let us know that she is available 24 hours a day on her cell phone.
I am so excited and nervous! I have Mei Mei’s backpack ready to go with some little things to break the ice – a small digital camera, things to write and color with, including a white board with colored markers, a notebook, pens, pencils, crayons, etc, a Leapster2 handheld game, some candies and some ‘lip gloss’ (Chapstick type), and some Polly Pockets dress up dolls. I have a small suitcase I am calling my ‘bag of tricks’ to pull things out of as needed in our hotel room. It is full of games, crafts, activity books, paper dolls, Polly Pockets, etc. I also have a portable DVD player that will play DVDs from all regions of the world and several movies with Mandarin tracks (Nemo, Toy Story, Mulan, Disney Princesses). We will let Mei Mei pick out Chinese DVDs, books and CDs before we leave China. We will also see if she is interested in going swimming in the hotel’s indoor pool – I have no idea if she has ever been swimming before!
Okay, I must get myself ready and go eat some breakfast! Our next post will have pictures of Maya Mei with our family!
Hugs from Wuhan,
Laura Beth
Hello everyone. This is an update from Adam...
We arrived in Wu Han this morning, with our copious luggage in tow. We were met at the airport by our guide Shirley. As usual, the luggage just barely fit into the van and we were off to the hotel. For the second time we won the prize for most suitcases per person. The good news is, we always seem to have everything we need thanks to Laura Beth's careful planning and thorough packing.
The hotel is in the government and cultural district of Wu Han, which is about an hour from the airport. We crossed the Yangtze river, which is absolutely enormous. The engineering for the bridges and tunnels is itself very impressive. There was a very large building which I thought might be the Yangtze stadium... (groan) but no confirmation of that from the guide.
The ride to hotel was uneventful. From our guide, we learned quite a bit about the Hubei district, which is a fascinating place. Not only was it the geographical center of ancient China, it is also the spiritual center as well. This is the birthplace of Taoism and of the ancient art of Tai Chi. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed here as well.
We settled into the hotel, had some lunch, and then took a trip next door to the Metro, which is not a train station. It was described to us as the German version of Wal Mart. It was quite an adventure. Just like Wal Mart, you could buy anything there. It was absolutely packed, with forklifts driving back and forth every where. We kept Eliana in the cart because that seemed like it would be safest. We bought some soy milk for Eliana, some chips and cookies for Ben. We were quite the spectacle in the store. Everyone stared at the western family with a Chinese daughter. As we tried to check out, we found out that it was more like Sam's club than a Wal mart, with a membership required. The poor cashier struggled to make us understand that we needed a membership card. We stood thee for a while, blank looks on out faces, shrugging our shoulders, when a kind woman behind us swiped her membership card and we were allowed to make our purchase. We will take another trip there tomorrow with Mei Mei and try to have the card issue sorted out then.
We did not do much else today. The truth is that we are all pretty jet lagged. Laura Beth, who I think has slept maybe 10 of the last 96 hours finally collapsed, but not until I promised to post and let everyone know that we are in Wu Han. We had quiet moment of reflection a little earlier in the evening. The kids went to sleep early, Laura Beth was organizing paperwork, and we were left in a quiet room contemplating the fact that we get to meet our daughter for the first time tomorrow. This thought is both exciting and more than a little frightening. We have so much to learn about her. We are a family that likes to prepare... but there is absolutely no way to prepare for this, we just have to let it happen.
Thanks again for all of your prayers, thoughts, and kind wishes. Signing off for tonight. Next stop is gotcha day.
Adam
|
So, we took over 300 pictures today on my new camera! We are still learning to use it – it was my birthday present to myself. Both of my parents both gave me some money for the holidays and my birthday and this is what we bought, so THANK YOU Mom & Dad! It is a Nikon D3000 body with a Tamron 18-270mm lens. We don’t know how to use all the features yet and this is WAY more camera that I am used to, but hopefully they are turning out okay. The store we purchased it from will give us a free class on how to use it, but wasn’t able to squeeze that in before we left!
Sending pictures via Blogger on our trip is going to be an issue! I am having to post to the blog via email and the pics are too big to attach – they make my emails bounce back. I have uploaded all the pics to our Flickr account and will try to share directly from there. These are unedited and don’t have any captions/comments or anything. I would like to select a few of my favorites to share on the blog, but I don’t have time to sort through them and resize them to include in an email. I think you can just view the thumbnails and click on the ones you want to see, or view as a slideshow (a really BIG slideshow)!
So here is the link to our pictures – enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cohnfamily/sets/72157623189847367
Hugs, Laura Beth
I tried to post this via email before I went to bed, but I attached pictures and it bounced back. So, I am attempting to post again at 1:42am, since Eliana woke up for a bit. She is back asleep, but I am not. :o) I will attempt to post some pics separately this time. Here is what I wrote about 5 hours ago right before I went to bed:
Good morning to everyone in the States! It is only 7:30pm here, but Eliana and Ben have been asleep for a while and I will be hitting the sheets soon myself! We had a nice day hitting a few highlights of Shanghai on what turned out to be a very hazy and overcast day. I took over 200 pics and am in the process of uploading to Flickr, but my connection is VERY slow, so pics will not be posted here until tomorrow – thanks for understanding!
Jet lag seems to be hitting us hard this time (last trip, it seemed to be a non-issue). I am sure that the lack of sunlight here in Shanghai today is a contributing factor. Eliana awoke several times in the night, and as of 3:30am I gave up on getting her back to sleep and got up myself. Which made Adam get up as well. I am really hoping we can get straightened out before we meet Mei Mei in person on Monday!
We enjoyed beautiful YuYuan garden and would love to see it again someday in the springtime. There wasn’t a lot of greenery and even fewer blossoms, but the rocks and the leafless trees made quite an impact in their winter state – very sculptural. We also had a tea demonstration in that area, ‘Chinatown’, and bought small amounts of our favorite varieties to bring home. Next, we had a DELICIOUS lunch in a private room with anywhere from 2-4 servers at any particular moment to make sure we were happy, all served family style on a large lazy susan in the middle of the table. YUM! Noodles, soup, vegetable fried rice, steamed buns , delicious little pastry type things filled with mushrooms, and some with sweet red bean paste. Did I say yum???
Next we went to the Pearl Tower in the PuDong area of Shanghai and zoomed up to the observation level in the fastest elevator ride ever. It should have been great views of Shanghai, but the weather was not on our side at all – overcast and very hazy with no sign of the sun. There is an area on the observation level where you can walk out onto a glass floor with nothing below you except the sidewalk very far below you. Mom & Ben opted out. Eliana was the first one out – absolutely fearless. In fact, she was swinging off of the railing like a monkey! Several people (strangers) took pictures of her. Adam did pretty well on it, and I made it out onto the glass floor for a few minutes with a little assistance from Adam (GULP!)
My eyes literally keep closing, so I am going to sign off for now and post pictures tomorrow! I am trying to attach a few ‘teasers’ – hope they come through via email!
Hugs, LB
Hello from the Executive Lounge at the Renaissance Shanghai YuYuan! My mother and I are enjoying wine (me), Decaf (her) and dessert while enjoying the beautiful lights of Shanghai across the Huang-Pu (sp?) River! All the other Cohns are fast asleep in their hotel rooms. I can already tell that another trip to Shanghai will be in our future - much to see here and not enough time to even scratch the surface with just one day of touring! Our guide, Kelly, is lovely - young, spunky and with suberb English skills. I think tomorrow will be fun. And temps in the low 50's!!! We are WAY overdressed!
I am posting via email as Blogger, Facebook and all my Yahoo Groups seem to be blocked so far (as opposed to 2008 when I had NO issues accessing sites). The long flight (about 15 hours) from Chicago to Shanghai went very well. We were on United in Economy Plus, which was quite comfortable. After seeing the business class, I was glad we did not spend all of our United points plus $500/person to upgrade! It was not THAT much better than Economy+. The flight was not full and we were able to commandeer a middle row of 5 seats and alternate laying down to take naps. :o) And, I managed not to spill any drinks this time! Eliana slept quite a bit, and the ColorWonder and Bendaroos were very successful distractions, as well as the DVD player with a 13 hour battery. For those flying United on a 777 to China, you do have individual TVs, but there are 9 channels that play a different movie on each, looping continuously. So, she could watch Nemo or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs over and over again if she wanted to. (Cathay Pacific had individual movies on demand at each seat when we flew them in 2008).
Just wrapped up a nice conversaiton with a lovely Aussie sitting at the next work station - he distracted me! Okay, that's all for now. I will hopefully figure out my new fancy schmancy dSLR camera and be able to take and upload pics starting tomorrow!
Please keep Mei Mei in your thoughts. She must be so scared knowing that she is spending the last few nights with her foster family in the only home and with the only family she remembers. We are hoping for the best for her transition to our family, but we are certainly going into this with our eyes wide open to all the possibile scenarios! We are also a bit nervous about communication, but know that we will find a way to express ourselves to each other, with or without an interpreter!
Sorry if this post is rambling. Should try to get some sleep - must be ready to meet Kelly in the lobby at 9am for a big day of touring Shanghai!
Zai jian,
Laura Beth & family
