13 hours and counting

In exactly 13 hours, we will officially become a family of four. Six if you count the fish and cat.

We arrived in Nanchang this afternoon, and immediately came to the hotel. Very nice. They even have an indoor pool and playroom for the kids (Hannah is VERY excited about that). And high speed internet!

This was the first image we were greeted with as we boarded our bus in the parking lot:

Jiangxi Kids

Originally uploaded by MomTo2.

Two things. There are children here in Nanchang. Several of us in the group noticed the lack of children in Beijing. An obvious result of the one child policy. We saw very few children out in public. Second, the children are absolutely beautiful here. A fellow Jiangxi parent who adopted last spring, told me they say in China “Jiangxi baby very pretty, Jiangxi baby very smart.” I guess I'm just a little biased. We saw these beauties at the restaurant tonight:

More Jiangxi Kids

Originally uploaded by MomTo2.

Although we are all ecstatic to finally be here (for obvious reasons), we were sad to leave Beijing, primarily because we had to leave behind our wonderful guide, Wendy.

Wendy

Originally uploaded by MomTo2.

She is really an amazing woman. She is smart, funny, warm and beautiful. Marian and I actually teared up as we were saying goodbye.

Nanchang is a "small" city -- only 4 million. It's on the Gan River, which is a branch of the Yangtze. Nan means South, and Chang means prosperity. Although we have seen only a bit of it, it appears to be a really beautiful city, and we're anxious to explore. The traffic here is the same as in Beijing, so you take your life in your hand, whether you are a pedestrian or a passenger. Roger had a really good observation today. He says they drive cars like they ride bikes, and that really makes sense. Afterall, just ten years ago, the only cars on the streets were taxi's and government cars. So driving is fairly new to the Chinese.

We meet our group in the lobby tomorrow morning at 10:50. The government building is only 5 minutes away. We pick up the girls at 11:00am. We'll be focusing on using the video camera at the moment we get Lucy, but we will take lots of photos after, and I'll post some as soon as I can. When we get her, it will be 8pm on Sunday night in Portland, so think of us then. 13 hours and counting.