Nanchang City Adventure

We arrived last night to Nanchang City and let culture shock get the better of us. From the vantage point of the shuttle bus, Nanchang seemed very dirty and depressing. Unapproachable. We retreated to our five star hotel room for the evening. We were told that our baby would arrive at 4:00 pm today and by morning Geoff and I knew we would not be held prisoner in the hotel. We found a map and ventured to a local park or two even though it was a gray and cloudy day.

We walked for a mile and encountered a charming street full of clothing stores, a monument and park to the August 1 people's uprising, and finally a beautiful park complete with ponds and flowers and pagodas and families with children and ice cream stands and a small amusement park.

Geoff and Grayson at local park

Geoff, Gray and I were literally the only Westerners we saw the whole time. People did stare at us, especially old men and women. When I would catch their eye, I would smile and you know, they always smiled back. A few people would say hello in English, and we would smile and say Nia Hou. One man asked where we were from and welcomed us to China.

The highlight was when Grayson and I decided to ride the swing ride in the park. For 10 Yuan each (about $1.50) we got on one of those swings that circles round and round up high in the air. The woman who helped us on the ride was thrilled that she had two foreigners on her ride and smiled and waved.

Grayson on swing

We had a great time. I bought Grayson an ice cream for 1 Yuan. It was some sort of green popsicle and it had beans inside. It tasted fine but Grayson, after picking beans out, was frustrated, so we tried again and ended up with a more traditional vanilla ice cream bar covered with chocolate. The sun eventually came out and even though the Chinese are very comfortable in long sleeves and heavy sweaters, Geoff and I were roasting hot. They definitely stared at our bare arms.

Amy and Grayson at park

On our walk we passed about a dozen KFC franchises, a Wal-mart and a cinema. The city is very chaotic. Crossing streets even with the lights can be dangerous, but it really was just a city filled with people and life and food and loud music and traffic.

Amy and Grayson in front of Aug 1 uprising memorial

We are back now. Our lovely coordinator sent our laundry out for us. We had a short lunch with our fellow adoptive families. We are now back in our room waiting for Catherine to call us down to the conference room to meet and take custody of our child. We'll post again with news of the big event. We are all planning a play date and a pizza party.

Much Love and thanks for following us,

Amy, Geoff and Grayson

PS If you want to view all the pictures from Nanchang City you can go here.