Nanchang

In Beijing boarding the plane for Nanchang.



Nanchang is like nothing I’ve ever seen before… except maybe on TV. Some places are decent...









But most are very run down ...













The streets are jam packed full of old bicycles that look like US bikes looked in the 1950’s. People wearing big pointy straw hats and pulling carts on the back of their bikes that are piled high with just about everything you can imagine that they are trying to peddle; mopeds with numerous people hanging off them; double-decker buses with no windows; and little cars that honk constantly as they drive fast with no traffic rules among all the bikes, buses, and mopeds. There are no lanes for traffic - everyone just kind of pushes their way through, and we have no idea how they don’t wreck. And it is dirty….so…so…dirty.

We had to cross two wide, crazy streets to get to Civil Affairs this morning and it’s like taking your life into your hands!! We went to a tall office building and the best way I can describe it was like you stepped into a 1940’s gangster movie. First of all, it was hot and dark. (It is so hot here, the humidity is amazingly oppressive and no air conditioning) Everything is gray and the offices were all empty except for a bare desk in the middle, with bare walls and no light except what came in the filthy windows. Like I said…old gangster movie feel. And everything is smoky…everything.

We feel like we are holed up in the hotel hiding away until Friday. But we do have to go out again tomorrow morning at 9am to do more paper work and pay for fees, and then our guide, Helen, is taking us to an ancient pagoda. Helen is sweet and she really knows what she is doing, but I think she thinks I’m totally stupid because I never understand anything.

Yesterday she was upset because I didn’t understand that she was trying to get me to take a picture with the orphanage workers, and I didn’t realize what she wanted. So, this morning at Civil Affairs when she said, “You take picture with orphanage director,” I jumped right to the task!! She is a very young and very tiny little Nanchang native.

There are a lot of adoptive parents in our hotel from all over the world. We met families from the UK and from Holland today, and a couple from Pittsburgh (yes, our Pittsburgh) at the Civil Affairs offices. I miss the other members of our travel group, though. I will be so glad to head to Guangzhou on Friday. I know Faith will be fine. And something tells me that heading out of this place will make the “fine” more of a reality.

We are seeing if Helen can arrange a visit to the orphanage. If she can, only Mitch and Mitchell will go. I really wanted to go but I realize I cannot take Faith back there. Please continue to pray for us.

Matthew says he is working on some home video clips he took yesterday and will try to have them sent to Aunt Lou to post in a few hours. Love to you all back home!!!!!

Faith is with the Family!!

We don't have a lot of details yet because Cherie hasn't been able to get emails out, but we do know they have gotten Faith and she spent the night with them. As soon as Cherie is able to get more information to us, I'll be sure and get it posted.

Keep praying for Faith's adjustment to her new family and for all coming details to work out well.

More to come........

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

We are really hungry and have not eaten much of anything. Yesterday they took us to a restaurant and sat all kinds of salads, fish, rice, and spicy chicken dishes in front of us. We ate rice and chicken. We have been strictly warned off of any fruits or vegetables. Anyways, Mitchell says that I (Cherie) hit rock bottom today….I ATE BEEF JERKY! Never had it before in my life but it tasted pretty American to me today. We cannot understand why no one over here sells Ritchey’s products, but, Andrew, if you’re reading this…we seriously think you need to start selling internationally. We came down from the Great Wall yesterday, walked into a snack shop and asked each other, “Do you think they sell Ritchey’s stuff here?”

Today we flew to Nanchang. Nanchang is the seat of government for the Jiangxi Province. The Fuzhou Orphanage that our daughter is from is about a two hour drive from here. We will be here in Nanchang until Friday. Friday we will fly to Guangzhou and meet up again with the other families in our group.

Today we found out what it feels like to be a minority. We were on a bus (standing room only) bumping around shoulder to shoulder and we were the only non-Chinese people on the bus. A couple from the plane tried to have a sort of sign language-ish conversation with us, but it was amazing how difficult it was. I think that is the very first time I ever tried to communicate with someone when we couldn’t speak the same language. I found myself saying words really slowly and loudly like that was going to help.

As the plane touched down in Nanchang and covered the distance of the runway, we could tell we had landed in a world quite different from Beijing. We unloaded into a little, hot airport, got our bags and were met by our new guide who took us outside into air that is about 98 degrees and 90 percent humidity. The air is so hazy with humidity and so polluted that you cannot see very far into the distance. We got into a very rickety vehicle and traveled forty miles with our eyes fixated on the outside view.

We drove by farm communities with tiny broken down shack/houses with no windows. As we came near the city, the shacks began to turn into apartment buildings still broken down, still with no windows, and just not a clean place in sight anywhere. It’s really difficult to describe. The view from our window baffles us as we sit in a beautiful hotel. I really cannot describe what it looks like or what it makes you feel when you look out at it. We talked about the people who work in this luxury hotel and then go home to that.

Helen, our new guide, took us to an open market across the street to buy bottled water. It was a tiny place on the street - just a man and his wife. Helen said “water” and the woman pointed to her little cooler with individual bottles. Mitch shook his head “no” picking up two cases of water off her pile, and she just lit up. We bought several cases of drink and you could tell they were overjoyed.

While I am writing this, we are in our hotel room waiting to be called to the lobby when they arrive here from the orphanage…

More about Beijing

The stylish little bus that our guide takes us adoptive families around in. Here, Mitchell poses in front of our fabulous "meenee" bus (that's what our guide calls it). Our meenee bus came complete with a sign in the interior which reads "Communist Party Member" Here Mitchell poses with his ice cream bar that he bought in the Forbidden City. It was CREAM CHEESE FLAVOR?!?!

This is the wrapper - so, why do you think we couldn't tell what flavor it was???

We visited Olympic Park. We're in front of the Birds' Nest, and Mitchell is heading to the Ice Cube.

A Chinese girl came up beside me as we were walking through the Olympic Park and pointed to Noah, the adopted son of a couple in our travel group. “Is he Chinese?” she said. “Yes, and these are his adoptive parents,” I said. And then she and I talked a little.

It was a great day and we are so amazingly tired. Gracie, I bought you the most awesome kite today!! Christian, I’ll be finding some neat stuff for you!!

Mitchell made me promise to put this on the blog… When I told my mother I would email her and the kids, she wanted to know if I would email her at her house or at my house! : )

Well, it is 9:00 pm Saturday night here and I need to get our suitcases packed. In the morning at 5:30am (Saturday, 5:30pm for you), we head to the airport to fly to Nanchang. We have a 3-hour flight and then 2 hours later, we will get our little girl in our hotel lobby!! Tonight when Susan (our guide) left us, she was giving us all instructions for when we get our kids tomorrow. I just wanted to say, “Wow, this is really going to happen!” I have very aggressive butterflies in my stomach when I even try to process all that is going to happen tomorrow. We would really appreciate your prayers. Love to everyone back home.

Touring in Beijing

We had a beautiful day of touring today with our wonderful guide, Susan.

We started the day in Tiananmen Square. I never realized that the large city gate with the huge picture of Mao is actually the entry gate into an outer court of the Forbidden City. Touring the Forbidden City was crazy. I have never been in the middle of so many people in one place in my life. The city was beautiful!

We saw so many neat little things – like children with white bread buns tied onto little strings hanging from their wrists, little ones in their infamous ‘split pants,’ and many little girls in beautiful traditional silk dresses. The Chinese women dress very pretty in dresses and heels as their every-day clothes. They also carry fancy umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun.

Several people stopped Mitch and asked if they could get their picture taken with him, and people took pictures of us as we were walking around. You should see how people crane their necks to get a look at our group. “Freaks” we are!

We CLIMBED the Great Wall… and I do mean CLIMBED!!! Straight UP thousands and thousands of stairs. It is an amazing sight. We are beat!! You know – it’s actually a very small world… today on The Great Wall of China I met up with a woman from State College, PA!!

Pictures Just In!

The boys checking through immigration

At the airport getting ready to board for Beijing

In Beijing

Well, we have arrived in Beijing. We had a wonderful flight. When we were standing in line to get on our plane, a ticket agent came up to us and said, “Let me see your boarding passes” He stamped them, winked at us, and said, “today is your lottery day” We didn’t know what he did, but assumed it was something good. When we got on the plane, we were seated in first class.

That’s when we made spectacles of ourselves. We laughed and pulled out our pillows and blankets, complimentary socks, individual TV screens with GPS that showed where we were at all times. We were served a 4-course meal and many other things.

I sat beside a man who works at the US Embassy here in Beijing. We talked a lot and he told us many interesting things! It was a long flight but the time went by quickly because it was so nice and relaxing in FIRST CLASS. Our Embassy friend told us that economy class in and out of China is really chaotic. Our return flight should be quite different. We met a couple on the plane heading to pick up a little girl from the same orphanage we are. There were four adoptive families on our flight.

All the airport employees where we went through immigration and customs wore masks. You know...because we are contaminated. :-) (Actually, I think it's because of the flu scare around the world.)

We are hungry but afraid to eat. Our guide, Susan, wrote a note for us to carry with us that says “No Ice” and “No vegetables or fruit” in Chinese characters. Listening to her chatter in Chinese with the hotel staff makes us smile. She just stood here and gave us a whole bunch of instructions that I tried to follow, but I am about asleep on my feet and nothing she said really stuck in my mind very well. We are exactly 12 hours ahead of you all.

That’s all for now. Mitch is out jogging, of course! The streets are full of mopeds. I think I’m going to take a nap. Love you all…and…Christian and Gracie, we miss you already, we love you very much.

-- from Cherie at 5:52 am our time.