Thursday, February 16, 2006

Yueyang!

It is now early on the morning of the 17th. I didn't type this up last night as I passed out on the bed while Michael was trying to figure out a better way to load our photos. Yesterday was one of the most amazing days of our entire lives. When we learned we would be coming to Changsha again to adopt WenYan one of our first decisions was that we must go to Yueyang and see where Sophie is from. We weren't able to do that during her adoption and it felt like something we must see for ourselves. Our agency said they would try but as we also want to go to WenYan's orphanage it would be difficult to get into 2 orphanages in one trip. We were prepared and happy to just see the area and deliver the blanket donation from Angel Covers. Long story short, we get to Yueyang and pull up to the back door of the orphanage and I start to hand over the blankets and Michael is taking photos and I am ready to get back into the car and the next thing I know we are being escorted into the director's office and treated as honored guests.

We sat in his office and visited for quite a long time although I have no clue how long as I completely lost track of everything but that moment. He looked at every page of a photo album of the 10 families in our travel group and smiled and thanked us and we thanked him back.. you get the idea. They wanted to see this website so I got to sit at the director's chair and pull it up on his computer and they saved it in their favorites! They allowed us to see the room where Sophie slept and the playroom but not take any photos. There aren't babies in this orphanage anymore as they have moved them all into foster families. They invited us to lunch so we got into vans and went to probably the nicest place in town where we had a private dining room and were served the best food we have eaten here in Hunan in two adoption trips. Yueyang is a pretty small town by China standards so I was surprised and prepared for some pretty weird stuff but it was all delicious. As we began to eat, they wanted to toast to Ba Yuan Min which is Sophie's Chinese name and it was a very touching moment as we sat around a table with the director, vice director, office manager, head nanny/accountant, driver and our guide and driver and we all thought of her for a moment. They presented us with a beautiful gift of a box lined in bright yellow silk with two smaller boxes filled with tea made in the region. We were just overwhelmed with the whole experience. They asked us if we wanted a group photo taken across the street in front of the civil affairs office so we did that and then we got in our vans and went our separate ways.

Our guide is fantastic. I mentioned that I wanted to buy some kind of memento for Sophie and the other girls in our travel group from Yueyang and he worked so hard to find something but Yueyang is just not that kind of town... I was ready to give up and he kept looking and found a post office where we bought postcards and they stamped each one with their postal stamp. Michael and I are both just so grateful for this experience. We drove back to Changsha with big smiles on our faces just thinking over and over again about the experience and wishing it wasn't the middle of the night in the US and we could call someone from our Yueyang travel group and tell them.. we were bursting! Our travel group is close and has yearly reunions and we promised the director to email him a photo from our reunion this summer in NC.. we actually have his email address.

We got back to the hotel and had dinner and explored the many things to do here.. there is a bowling alley, table tennis, huge pool and gym and shopping mall with upscale shops.
 
I am going to send a few photos for posting from the day including one of daddy and I for you Shea.
 
It is now just a few hours until we meet WenYan. Keep a good thought in your hearts for our girl today please. She had to leave Chenzhou very early to make the 5 hour drive to Changsha and meet us at 11 am and I am just imagining how she might be feeling about now. Love to all!

Susan and Michael