25 may - orphanage visit

(photos are not in correct chronological order, cannot fix that because I upload my blog by e-mail). 

Today we went to the orphanage to deliver the gifts, and hopefully talk to the director. After a night with more sleep than before, I felt much better. I didn't know jetlag could be so bad! We had a roomservice breakfast (for the last time), continental type, with toast and marmelade, and went to our guide Jasmine. We prepared the visit, she had no knowledge about orphanages and how adoptions are handled, and I told her what I wanted to know if possible. But also that she had to handle this very carefully. Off we went. It was a 15 minute taxi ride to the orphanage. We then searched for the director, and finally found her on the 4^th floor. She sent us to the administrative officie nextdoor. We where greeted by the head of administration, who immediately recognized Shen and was very happy to see us. We had to sit on a couch, got tea, and Shen got candy (which he ate immediately of course) and within no time his 3 ayi's where there and they where so happy to see him. It was so touching to meet these ladies (whos photos are in Shen's lifebook) and to see how they remembered him. Shen showed them the pictures of our house, his room, his papa and sister Mean, we tried to sing Mama Hao but he didn't want to so I stopped. I gave the ayi's a photo of Shen (recent one, with his name in characters on the backside, I asked my guide to do that). I showed them the photobook of Dutch kids adopted from Shenzhen and they loved it. They only remembered the children adopted from my travel group, because they didn't take care of the others. But they loved to see the recent pictures of the boy and girls (they look so beautiful and happy, they said). I gave the photobook and the other presents to the head of administration. I also gave the letter with recent photos of a US girl which I took with me, and the ayi's where pleasantly surprised and also remembered her. I gave the letter and photos to the head of administration.

They asked me if I wanted to know anything, if I had any questions. I asked about the records of Shen, and they said that they couldn't show them immediately, because it was lunch break, but we could make another appointment for tomorrow at 3 PM. They would have the records of Shen available by then. They also offered to send the records to me by e-mail. So, tomorrow we'll go back.

After the orphanage visit we went shopping with our guide and had lunch at the Pizza Hut (something new for us, there is no Pizza Hut anywhere near us). It was my first real lunch/dinner with a normal portion in China. Shen and I shared a pizza. Then we went for more shopping, and at 3 PM we went back to our hotel. At that moment the rain stopped, and it looked even a bit sunny (through the clouds). Oh, how nice! We dropped off everything in our room, packed the backpack again and went to Lizhi park by taxi. I had never been to a Chinese park before, but wanted very badly, so this was such a nice trip! Shen thought so too, we had so much fun talking about what we saw, people playing games, dancing, fishing, we loved it!

We had trouble getting a taxi back (traffic hour I guess) but arrived at 7 at our room. Shen was hungry he said, so went to the restaurant (Greenery's) under the hotel. It was a buffet restaurant, and it was very good. Teppanyaki, Hot Pot, more than you could eat. Shen loved the Hot Pot corn on a stick, so he ate two of them. It was already 9 PM when we where back! He brushed his teeth and jumped into bed (and is sound asleep by now). What a great day!

Tomorrow (if the weather is not too bad) I want to go to Splendid China, a themepark on the metro line. Should be easy to go to. Hopefully the weather will be good!

More about our second orphanage visit tomorrow!