Back in action!

Hanchuan Visit

Lewie and Ana on the way - note that there are no seat belts!

The gates to the Hanchuan Orphanage

Top of the gates

Lewie and Elly plaing on the old equipment - no children live here anymore - now it's an old folks' home

Some of the old folks watching us!!

Outskirts of the city of Hanchuan

Han River

Our lunch where we ate every part of the lotus plant!  Roots. stems, leaves, seeds.

Outside of the restaurant - those are lotuses growing in the background

One of the many lakes in Hanchuan - lotuses growing of course!

The sweet, sweet HaHa.  He has a cleft palate and repaired lip and was so touched by our family.

Downtown Hanchuan

At a park; look at my beet red face - it was almost unbearably hot

The lotus is the symbol of Hanchuan

Lewie found a decapatated snake floating in the lake

HaHa with our mysterious companions - they got into our van as we entered Hanchuan and got out as we were leaving.  I'm sure they were government workers, sent to supervise our visit.

Hi All

I was so excited when we got to the Wuhan Airport yesterday morning and there was wifi!  I wrote a nice long email about our time there and when I pressed "send".........nada.

Wuhan lived up to its name of "The Furnace!"  It was easily 100 degrees every day and didn't cool off much in the evening.  Our hotel was right on the Yangtze River, with magnificent views.  The first day we were there we went to Hanchuan, a small city outside of Wuhan, where Analise was born and lived for her first 18 months.  Our guide was our supposed-to-be-guide's boyfriend, HaHa!  He is an electrical engineer but wanted to help out since he lived in Hanchuan for some time.  HaHa was SOOOOO sweet and did his best to make sure we saw lots of sights in Hanchuan.  We went to Analise's orphanage, which is now an old folk's home.  As we entered the city, we pulled over (we were in a van) and picked up 2 guys who had big badges hung on lanyards around their necks.  They came with us to the orphanage and stayed with us the whole time we were there!!  One of them took LOTS of photos of the kids.  We asked HaHa who they were and never got a direct answer - he said they had to open the gates of the orphanage.......even though there was a gatekeeper!

The lotus is the symbol of Hanchuan and boy, did we see a lot of them growing, everywhere!  We stopped for lunch and were served 12 platters piled high with food.  We had, among other things, lotus root, leaves, seeds (that you crack open and eat like peanuts), and stems!  We could have fed 25 people with all that we were served!  HaHa took us to the largest lake in Hanchuan and a park.  Lewie found a decapitated snake floating in the water, which made the whole trip worth it for him!

It was just wonderful, seeing where Ana was born.  We loved HaHa, even if we could only understand about 1/4 of what he said.  He probably thinks we are a simple people, with all of our nodding, smiling and "oh, how interesting!"

The next day we met up with our REAL guide, Phoebe (aka Chen Ying).  She took us to the Yellow Crane Tower, originally built as a military observatory and then used to look out over the Yangtze by royalty.   While we were hiking up the 9 floors to look out from the top of the tower, Frances nearly passed out from the heat.  Her lips turned WHITE :(.  I took her down and fanned her and got her to drink water.  Then Lisa took her back to the hotel.  Elly, Lewie, Ana and I continued on (Aunt Suzie opted out of this field trip!) with Phoebe.  We had lunch and went to the Provincial Museum, which was SO interesting.  The main display was about an excavation of a tomb in Northern Hubei of a "Marquis."  After that we went to the temple of 500 Buddhas, where women were fussing over the kids, telling our guide to tell me I was a good Mama for bringing them back to China to visit.

The kids are such incredible, awesome, wonderful travelers!  We are all having such a fun time being here and seeing the sights.  Everyone was kinda cranky in the beginning, with jet lag but we are really enjoying ourselves.

We're in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia now and I'll have to save a post about this place for another time since there is only 1 computer here in the business center and Aunt Suzie is waiting patiently to check her email!

I can't wait to share the photos we have!

Love

Barbara