In Hefei!

We woke up really early this morning to be shuttled to the airport along with a few other families. We were separated from our group at security so Ferland's and Graham's if you are reading this...good luck and we'll see you in GZ!


Our guide, Erin, met us at the airport in Hefei and took us right to the Holiday Inn. This is quite a chic hotel. There is a revolving restaurant at the top, floor 29, with views of the city. Our room is great and I think XJ will love this hotel. We are on the 18th floor and have a fantistic view, there is an indoor pool, a noodle restaurant (more about this later) where you can see the guy make the noodles. I saw a cute little kid go up to the window to watch and he got a ball of dough to play with. The lobby has a koi pond and floor to ceiling windows and one of those elevators on the outside of the building....fun stuff!

I think Westerners here are quite an anomoly, we are getting a lot of friendly stares. I have not seen a non-Chinese person yet. All the people I have seen in this hotel are dressed to the 9's and I feel a bit dumpy in my now grubby clothes. There are some really expensive shops in the hotel like Roberto Cavalli so this is probably why.

It's raining now so we are going to stick around the hotel for a while but there is a nice park and a pedestrian shopping area just across the river so we'll head there later to pick up some last minute supplies for THE BIG DAY!

Our guide said we were the first people to adopt in Anhui province this year. She also told us that she has worked with several families that adopted from Lu'an orphanage and that it is "very good" and that the children are "very smart and speak good Mandarin".

We have unpacked our bags since we will be here for several nights and I want the room to be neat and organized for XJ. His bath toys are all waiting for him in the tub, his clothes are in a drawer and they brought a crib and a stroller. I think the crib will be too small but we have a King size bed so he can stay with us, or there is a pull out couch. We'll see what works. His backpack is all ready to go with candy, Teddy Grahms and toys to hopefully win him over at the first meeting tomorrow. 9:30 is when we head over to the Civil Affairs office for the meeting. That's all we do tomorrow. Everything else is done on Tuesday so we'll have the whole day to just play with him and let him get used to us.

No pictures to post today, I'll save that for tomorrow.

But, some last words about food. I am loving the Chinese food here! We went to the noodle place in our hotel and it was amazing! It is Sunday, so we had some dim sum and each ordered a noodle soup. Jason's soup might be one of the most delicious things I've ever had. It was some sort of spicy broth with peanuts, cilantro, leeks, noodles and beef. I had a wonton soup that was out of this world. We had a little trouble communicating with our waitress, she just kept apologizing and giggling, but she was very friendly and it all worked out. We're looking forward to enjoying this place daily while we are here....maybe XJ can order for us? We'll know tomorrow!

Last night without our son....