Leaving Nanchang, Heading to Guangzhou

Yesterday was our last day in Nanchang. The day before, our local guide, Mary, took us out to a village that was actually quite close to the big city of Nanchang. She wanted to take us there to show us how 75% of China lives - in small rural villages. She said that our daughters were most likely born into this kind of situation, which may help us better understand how a family might arrive at the decision that they cannot care for that child.

Here are some pictures of the village we visited.


This is the outside of one of the houses.


This is the kitchen inside the house.


The children loved getting their picture taken, especially when you would instantly show them with the digital camera.

It was pretty humbling. It was also quite a contrast with the modern-style city of Nanchang, a "small" city of only 4,000,000 people. Apparently a lot of the men in the village work in the city and come back to the village at night to live. While we were in the village, we hardly saw any men at all. Needless to say, it was hard to see, but our guide told us (and we could see) that the people there were pretty happy, even though they had almost nothing. The kids followed us around as we toured the village, and the old ladies were very happy to see all the babies we were carrying around.

The next day, we left the Gloria Plaza hotel and headed to the airport. This was the place where Sydney decided to have a meltdown, much to our dismay. We think that she was hungry and tired, because we were traveling mid-day, so she missed out on a nap and her eating schedule was thrown off. Once we boarded the plane, she was mostly okay, and all of the babies did quite well on the flight. However, this flight was only one hour long, but we are all crossing our fingers that this is a good sign for the extremely long days of flying coming up...




Sydney's first airplane ride!

When we got to Guangzhou, one of the first things we all noticed was palm trees! Guangzhou is in a subtropical climate, and we have all been looking forward to some warmer weather. It has been in the mid to upper 60s here, so we are all very happy to finally be able to put our cold-weather gear away! Guangzhou is also a much more modernized city than any we have been to so far. It is almost easy to forget we are in China, especially while on Shamian Island, which is where our hotel is. Many of the buildings are of European construction in this little area.

We are staying at the Victory Hotel, and Wendy and I must say that this is one of the finest hotels we have ever stayed at in our lives! Most of our travel group agrees. The rooms are huge! What a fantastic place to end our journey.

Today we go to get a medical exam for Sydney and take care of some more paperwork. Then we will get to do some sightseeing around the city, and hopefully enjoy some warm weather!


The requested family portrait...


This was just too cute to not put on the blog.

Just a few more days, and we'll be home! Needless to say, we are all looking forward to that. The end is in sight! Or is it merely the beginning? Hmmm...