Olivia Hui So Far

The slide show above documents our first three days in Lanzhou, including fun in the room after her arrival, the official adoption procedure, feeding the pigeons and the White Pagoda Park across the Yellow River in the mountains overlooking Lanzhou, which we did today. The day was rainy and smoggy all at the same time. Our eyes burn at times from the pollution. As you will see from the pics, visibility is poor.... but fun was had by all anyway. The park dates from the 13th century. Since Hui was born in the year of the horse and Emily was born in the year of the rooster we got pics of each sister next to a huge statue of their animal. The park starts at the edge of the river and climbs many levels until one reaches the 13th century shrine at the top of the hill. LOTS OF STEPS!

After the park we had lunch at the noodle restaurant where we ate the first day. Very crowded but a real slice of local color. Equally good this time.... 24 RMB (about $3.00) for all of us. The people stare at us quite a bit. We don't know if they are thinking "Who are those ugly people and why are they here?" or maybe "Why do they have that little Chinese girl with them?" "Who the heck do they think they are, coming to China and taking one of our Chinese Princesses home with them?" We are very sensitive to this and do hate that we are taking her from all that she knows. We assuage our guilt feelings over this by reminding ourselves that the literature says that as an orphan, she will have very little future here. Still, it is bittersweet. For her to gain (WE HOPE!) she has to lose. We know that WE have already gained a new love of our lives and that we will do anything to give her the life she deserves. I wax philosophic.

We continue to be amazed by Hui's personality and her spirit. She is, right now as I type this, giving Emily heck about something or other....... I wish we could understand her! This seems to bother her not at all.... she just chatters away! Emily just said "Thank You" to Hui for getting her a tissue, and Hui replied "You're welcome" in Mandarin....... Emily has been fantastic with Hui. It was the right decision to bring her along.
Entertainment in the afternoon while Hui takes her nap centers around watching the BBC News and CCTV 5, which seems to be their ESPN. All Chinese sports teams all the time. Right now we are watching badminton...... Yesterday it was ping pong..... boredom is a terrible thing.

(Later that day) We went for Chinese dumplings for dinner because that is what Olivia wanted to eat. They were tasty! We have a recipe for these that CHI gave us. We'll have to have a bunch over to try them... Emily wanted fried rice, so we went to a small restaurant on "restaurant row" ... very small two or three seat places.... while we were waiting for the order we noticed a group of young men walking by, one Chinese man had a blue shirt on with SLU on the front.... we said...SLU? NO! Can't be! Sure enough as they walked past there was a Billikin on the back of the shirt. John yelled out "Hey Billikins!" they turned around and were as shocked as we to find neighbors 7000 miles from home. The Chinese gentleman was born in China but has lived in the US since he was 3. His mom is from Beijing and his dad is from the south of China. There are about 100 students spending the year studying international business in China in Beijing and this group from SLU is touring the Silk Road before their term starts next week. A couple of the guys attended Chaminade and one or two live right down the street from Whitfield, where Em goes to school. As one guy said "It's the smallest world I've ever lived in!" By the way, Em's fried rice cost about 32 cents US.

Tomorrow we go to the Zoo and a local museum. The rumor is that they have camel rides. All the best to everyone back home.