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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Walking on Air

Update:  Pictures!!!

So onto Sunday Aug 26.  On this day we went down to the Bund.  We went again with Nicole and Tim, but were joined by another adoptive family, John and Meredith West and their son Tyler. The Bund, which is also the name of our hotel, is a famous Shanghai landmark.  It is a line of colonial style buildings along the HuangPu River with an open park/plaza area all along the riverfront.  It is kind of their Michigan Avenue.  From there you can look across the river to Shanghai's financial district which houses the World Trade Tower, the tallest building in the city, and the Pearl TV Tower -- the tallest tower in Asia.

Pearl TV Tower





 To cross the river, we went thru the Shanghai Sightseeing Tunnel.  This tunnel takes you under the river and it was a trip!  You get on a little train car that rolls along thru the tunnel which has an LED light show and running commentary in very broken English -- "Shining stars, meteor shower, boiling lava, future fossils . . ."  Your guess is as good as ours as to why??

 Anyway, once on the other side we went up in the Pearl Tower.  This Tower has 3 large spherical sections that you can go into.  We went to the middle one which was 259 Km high. They have a glass bottom walkway similar to the one at the Sears Tower (I will NEVER call it the Willis Tower and the Willis Co. should be ashamed) but it rings all the way around the sphere.  Creepy to look  down and see nothing below your feet!  Evan did it with me, and I got a reluctant Tonia to step out -- though she wouldn't look down and ended up being a spectacle for the Chinese people to laugh and point at as she cried in a panic -- fun times!  Rylee refused . . .oh well!

If you look closely you can see the people in the glass bottom walkway


The view was amazing, and again the city spans forever in all directions 360 degrees!  Once the sun set, we got to see why Shanghai is called the city of lights -- all of the skyscrapers and buildings are lit up with moving, color changing lights.  Pretty cool!  By the end of the night we were exhausted!









The next day, Mon Aug 27, was the day we met our baby girl for the first time.  Our guide picked us up after breakfast and we drove to the Shanghai Children's Welfare Office.  There we did paperwork first and waited and waited.  Nicole and Tim & John and Meredith and several other families were there as well.  Finally she came reluctantly walking into the room, hesitant and scared, holding her Nanny's hand.  She was no bigger than a minute -- just a little peanut.  Finally after months of waiting and worrying, there was our daughter! We were walking on Cloud 9!   I got pictures and video as Tonia and the kids began to interact with little Maoxin.  She didn't want much to do with us, as expected.  After clinging to her nanny for awhile, Tonia finally picked her up and held her.  She was of course scared and cried and cried, looking for her Nanny.  The Nanny, who knows how these transitions go, hid under the table so as to allow Maoxin to strictly pay attention to Tonia.  She soon opened up pretty well.  The orphanage gave us the things we had sent Maoxin in her care packages, including the disposable cameras (2).  Can't wait to develop those!  They also gave us some gifts -- a very nice photo book of Maoxin, a chop (hand carved marble traditional Chinese name stamp), and a 100th anniversary of the Orphanage commemorative mug.  After a while of getting acquainted, we were allowed to leave with Nola Maoxin!  Officially, this was China's 24 hour trial period, where we could decide if she would work out or not.  We could return her the next day if we didn't find her suitable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really?  We went back to the hotel then and let Nola play with the kids and get used to her new surroundings.  On this day, she did pretty good.  She was very reluctant of Tyson, and men in general, but took a special liking to her mama right away!  She seemed to start settling right in throughout the evening.  What a traumatizing experience she must have had!  But she knew then and there that we loved her unconditionally!!!!!!!  The week continues next . . .

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh, tonia and ry! yall are no fun! that glass bottom in the big building thing, sounded soooo cool!
how are evan and rylee doing? are you as excited as the day you left ry?:) and evan! how fun is it to have a little sister?! i cant wait till you come home and can tell us all about China!

and awwhhh!!!!! (i know its been a couple days) but it is just soooooo exciting to know that you finally have Nola!:) we just CANNOT wait until she comes home with you!
~claire:)

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