Happy Thanksgiving!
We have so many folks watching this journey. Not only our parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, but their friends and co-workers. Add in my relatives in England, like Aunt Syb, Uncle Cliff, cousins Jill, Jane, and their family, then our EA colleagues, and Nicole’s wonderful Godparents, Rev. Randall Ehrichs and Robin, and friends from various adoption boards.
Talk about one very blessed and special child. Whoa boy!
Some things you might find interesting. The hotel we are in is about 50 stories high and we are in the downtown part of the city.
All the pictures above are of our hotel, the Dalton Hotel. Even though it is a 5 star hotel, there is no central air conditioning, only central heat. We did have an electric fan brought to our room to help. We leave the windows open all day and night. No one drinks the tap water, not even the locals, all use bottled water for drinking, brushing your teeth, etc. The hotel staff is extremely courteous and helpful. We had our laundry done last night and it was brought back 4 hours later, wrapped as if it had just been purchased in a store.
This morning while standing outside the front of the hotel having my coffee, I got to watch an interesting sight. Next to the hotel is a large square and there were about 60-70 people in the square dancing. They were doing the Waltz, or dancing by themselves, then dancing to more modern music, all of which left a big smile on my face. Reason. I’m going dancing tomorrow morning! Yes, I will have it video taped, maybe even a few digital pictures. Heck, how often does a guy get to dance in public in downtown Changsha, China?
The other night I needed to get some Alka-Seltzer for Kelly. Uh, Ok. I did find a pharmacy, but of course everything was in Chinese and no one in the store spoke English. So, I resorted to the international language skills I acquired in the Air Force. I grabbed my throat, made one heck of a hacking sound, put my hand to my forehead and moaned and groaned, rolled my eyes back up in my head, did some coughing, pounded on my chest, for several minutes. The ladies working there busted up laughing at my antics and then handed me, "Tylenol Cold Medicine" which was as close as you could hope for, given the language limitations.
They were still laughing as I walked out the store; so was I.
Our first night was entertaining as well. Kelly and I arrived at the hotel around 10 PM, and were feeling VERY hungry and tired. We did not have a chance to eat lunch or dinner while we traveled from Hong Kong to China so we ordered room service right away. While we were waiting for dinner, I went ahead and set the combination for the safe deposit box in the room. Unfortunately, I set it wrong and once I had closed it, I could not get the safe to open. Visions of the hotel having to cut the safe open are flashing through my head. So what do I do, I started hooking up the electronic stuff, (laptop, curling iron, etc.) and step one was to plug in the surge protector I bought for the laptop. As soon as I plugged it in, ZAP, the power was gone. Course, this is when we get our meal, so Kelly and I are eating by flashlight, feeling so tired, no lights, safe can’t be opened, and we are ready to drop.
It all eventually was fixed, but when you think about it happening in the first 5 minutes we are in the room, hopefully you can see the humor in it.
Our group will be going to a local restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner tonight. It will be a traditional Chinese meal, followed by a "special" cake in celebration of Thanksgiving Day. We have so much to give thanks to the Lord for; words just can’t describe.