Hangzhou

I will try to post a few more pictures of Beijing now that our internet connection is not so expensive.

We arrived in Hangzhou today and got settled in our hotel with a pack and play, diapers, bottles, and all the other 470 miscellaneous things we might need for a toddler. Sometime while we are sleeping tonight he and two other children along with the orphanage director and several nannies will board a train so that they will arrive here in the morning. We have an appointment to meet them at nine am tomorrow.

We will not be visiting the orphanage or finding spot, which is a little disappointing, but it would be a ten-hour round trip. Someday when he is older we will bring him back and see it all.

The woman in our group who has adopted before told us that in the orphanages where her daughters were, they would hang pictures of the parents in the crib for the children to see, so hopefully that is the case at Joshua's orphanage. I'm not sure that he's ever seen Caucasians before and we could be a little scary to him.

We haven't seen too much of Hangzhou yet, but it appears to be a very nice city. Our hotel is right on West Lake, which is supposedly a very popular vacation spot. It is clear that Hangzhou is a very wealthy city. Our guide, Rebecca, tells us that this province is the wealthiest one in all of China, and not surprisingly, there are not very many adoptions from here.

Hangzhou was once the capital of all of China and when Marco Polo came here, he called it the most splendid city in all the world. They are known for silk and tea.

Another thing that we found very interesting as we were driving through the city is that Rebecca pointed out her church for us. She told us, however, that they were going to have to build a much larger church – one that would hold 6,000 people - because Christianity is growing so fast here. It would be built, she said, with donations from the people, but the government would donate the land.

We ate at a very authentic Chinese place tonight – Pizza hut. It was the first time I have ever seen items on a Pizza hut menu such as Lamb chops with couscous, Grapefruit Seduction, and Harem Sweetie.

We are going to do our best to try and sleep tonight. It is very surreal that we finally get to meet our son tomorrow. Fortunately, jet lag has been working in our favor so far. We fall asleep immediately at night (a new experience for me) and are wide awake by 5am.