7/30 - Loudi Free Time

Today is Sunday and it’s pretty quiet around here.  We didn’t have anything specific planned today so we’ll rely on our guide and driver to show us Loudi.  I had researched a few places to visit but I guess it’s quite a drive to get to both of them, so we’ll stay around the city.

Most of the time the breakfast included Western items and the place cards with the food name was written in both Mandarin and Pinyin.  But… in Loudi we’re pretty remote and the need for Western food with Pinyin writing just isn’t there.  So, toast and fried eggs, fruit and tea.  Still not adventurous with food due to our sickness last week.

(random observation- men still smoke everywhere and anytime, even while standing in front of the    no-smoking signs!)

Our driver takes us to one of the parks along the Lian River.  There is barely anyone here.  I think we saw maybe 25 people.  Very unusual.  And, there were no cars along one of the roads in the park.  Very unusual!  As we are walking through the park, we come across a group of ladies practicing their dancing.  Very common.  Just as I was about to say we wouldn’t get by them without a photo, one of the ladies runs over to us, grabs Kyle’s arm and is shouting to the other ladies to get a picture.  Chaos soon ensued as all of the ladies wanted pictures with Kyle and I.  We didn’t look too closely at any of them as they were clad in biking tops and were obviously doing a belly-type dance.  Awkward!  Finally we broke free and continued our walk.  The driver was telling us that this river had flooded just 3 weeks ago which was why the dam was closed and part of the river dry. 

As we drove to another park in a different part of town we passed the new government buildings.  This park, Louxing Square, was very busy with lots of families enjoying the shade and breeze.  It’s another very hot, 102˚F, humid day.   Couples were dancing, grandpas were playing cards while younger men looked on, kids were swinging and riding the merry-go-round, people were exercising, others were singing and playing instruments… it was a symphony of different sounds!  As we passed by many stopped to look and wonder.  We took pictures on the bridge and walked around the lake that was part of the park.  An older lady stopped Kyle and was trying to ask if Natalee was his.  With our guide’s help, she explained our girls were Chinese and adopted to the USA.  The lady then smiled big and gave him a thumbs up!  We are very blessed! 

After the park experiences we had lunch at a nearby restaurant.  It was pretty good and again way too much food.  The Chinese don’t have “doggie bags” or anything as it’s culturally not really accepted.  The government has started a campaign to change that opinion and encourage less food & therefore less waste.  Imagine a country with 1.3 billion people the amount of waste that occurs! 

Our driver and guide take us to Natalee’s finding location after lunch.  It’s the gate to the former Loudi Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau.  Today it’s various offices. We walk around.  There is no one here.  We talk to a lady who lives at the store out front and she says this was also the original Loudi orphanage.  It looks familiar to me from pictures I received from other adoptive parents who had visited Loudi back in 2003.  It’s very odd to stand here at this gate and think what it must have been like 15 years ago when on a January day Natalee’s birth mom wrapped her up and placed her at this gate.  And, to think, that somewhere in this city there could be her family – birth mom, birth dad, grandparents, cousins…. It’s so hard to comprehend and words just can’t fully explain the range of emotions.  Natalee seems rather chill about everything.  She tells us that she’s cool with it all and that I have more sentimental feelings than she does.  I hope she’s okay. 

After resting back at our hotel and connecting to our blog, we decide to take a walk to find the pool and see if Megs can swim for a while.  Well, no luck.  The pool is a 5-minute walk which means it’s not easily found.  What we do find is the stadium and look inside and then we find the Loudi Municipal Museum.  It’s one of those buildings that is a work in progress and never really finished for use.  Part of the building is done and houses the Loudi Art Museum.  It’s open and the lady who is working is thrilled to see visitors, especially foreign ones.  We look around for a little while and then try to walk along the river just outside our hotel but there is a large fence and we can’t find a way around it.  Megan is melting so back inside to enjoy an ice cream treat and more ramen before packing up and getting to bed.

7/29 - On to Loudi, Hunan

7 am and ready to head to Loudi on our second train ride.  The morning was nice and “cool”, kind of quiet too with not many people outside yet.  Well, they all must be at the train station.  The place was crazy busy!  Good thing we arrived early because it took awhile to get through security.  The gal looking at tickets couldn’t process ours and had to pass us over to the next lane.  That meant we had to move.  Then they pulled my bag because of hairspray.  The gal totally ransacked the entire bag, I think she was curious more than anything.  It irritated me though and I’m feeling a little anxious already.  Breathe!!  As the people push and shove to get through, Nat and I manage to get do the same, standing still means getting jostled around even trampled. 

Our guide explained the process really well and what we needed to do each step.  We have “red” tickets which means we have to go through the line with a ticket agent.  This actually moved quite well and we made it down to our train.  This time the cars were identified on the outside and we easily found our seats.  We’re in the front of the car this time which gave Kyle lots of leg room and we had no one standing around us.  Our speed was 94 kph or something like 184 mph.  FAST!  We find our stop and are able to get off in time, finding our guide was easy too.  As we leave the train station, the heat & humidity hits us like a wall, much worse here than it was in Guiyang. 

We get to our hotel and realize that not only are we the only foreigners in the entire city but we’re on the outskirts of town, somewhat rural and won’t be able to walk around to explore.  For a small town, Loudi has about 3 million people but they are spread among a large area.  The city itself isn’t that big and has a very laid-back feel about it.  One of our hotel rooms has a view of the Lian River, the other of the stadiums across the street.  Our guide is going to take us downtown around 4:00 when It’s a little cooler out.  In the meantime, we get some lunch and rest and I’m able to get online to update our blog.

Lunch was another experience.  Our guide told us there was a restaurant onsite and we could eat there.  So, we check it out.  We must have arrived right at closing time as they were cleaning up.  We said no worries and went to leave, but the young waitresses insisted we stay.  They bring us the menu, of course we can’t read it, and start talking a mile a minute.  We smile and try to say we don’t understand.  One of them begins to translate via her smart phone.  Suddenly our table is surrounded by 8 girls, most of whom are giggling and pointing to Kyle & I taking pictures.  As they leave we continue to try to find something to eat.  The translations of some of the dishes are quite amusing…. One translated as “nothing at all” another as “removing the inside skin of the egg”.  Several other staff came out to see us and try to help.  We finally got one to understand we only wanted two dishes of fried rice with egg.  Only two?  They seemed astonished but we really don’t eat much with all the heat and exercise.  What is served to us are two huge bowls piled high with fried rice with egg.  And, its delicious.  We’re able to eat 1 ½ bowls and we drank two pots of tea.  We also gave the waitresses a good chuckle and they have stories to tell now too.

Four o’clock and we head into the city center.  We had to take 2 taxis as there are 5 of us and so Megan goes with the guide.  That made me nervous!  We all meet back up in the city center and begin our walk.  The city seems much more open than Guiyang.  The streets are wider and the buildings sit back further, it doesn’t seem to hover over you.  Our guide told us that the government paid a billion dollars to redo the main streets and bury the electrical wires.  Oh, right, we don’t see any of the tangled messes we found in other cities. 

The main shopping area reminds me of 8^th Street in Holland.  It’s mainly pedestrian with clothing shops and several bronze statues.  They might have a different type of snowmelt thought, it’s the heat and humidity.  😊  Not much is happening, there are a few groups of people playing cards but for the most part it’s not very busy (for Chinese standards).  We find one of the underground malls and a Chinese “dollarstore” with some local items.  We stop by the Hypermart for some groceries and candy for the kids at the orphanage.  Next stop was our daily bing-chi-ling (ice cream) from KFC.  Our guide was telling us that KFC is more popular than McDonalds because they offer specific Chinese spices and foods.  (We did see a burger adverstized at McD’s that featured some sort of sausage links on it too – not sure if that’s new across the globe or just a local Chinese sandwich.  We opted not to try it.) 

Once back at our hotel we had our noodles and watched a couple of boats on the river.  The end of another great day of our China journey!

7/28 - Guiyang Free Time

No real plan for the day.  We slept in and enjoyed a lazy morning.  Kyle wasn’t feeling up to eating and Megan only wanted ramen, so they skipped breakfast.  Late morning we decided to try to find the Guizhou Provincial Museum.  We visited back in 2009 and it was a great museum with wonderful handmade products from the local minority tribes.  Our guide wrote out the name for us so we could show the taxi driver.  We double checked with the hotel front desk and they said that location was no longer there and the museum had moved about 30 minutes away (which could mean the other side of town but due to the crazy traffic takes 30 minutes).  I checked online and according to TripAdvisor, they were in the original location and open.  So, we set off to find it. 

The taxi driver seems to know where we desire to go and yet when he stops it looks nothing like the location we had been before.  We get out and pay him not really knowing where we are.  It appears we’re at the Guiyang Public Library.  Well maybe this is the back entrance?  After walking around we realize, no it’s not.  We have a snack and try to get our bearings.  Let’s just google it… oh wait, google doesn’t work.  Ok… let’s walk and see if it’s down the road.  We end up texting our guide who says we’re close and need to head west.  Great, now which way is west.  After walking in the direction we thought was correct according the map our guide texted, we still found nothing.  We ended up walking into what we believe was part of the provincial government grounds as there were armed guards and police all around.  Back to square one.  We find a HagenDaas ice cream store and take a rest.  That turned out to be an experience too.  One of the young girls did her best to understand us and reply in English.  We get our ice cream and Kyle was going to pay with CC however, they couldn’t get their machine to work and we were charged three times.  He paid with cash and they work to cancel the three transactions and apologize profusely.  So, we’ll see how much the ice cream actually costs.

As we’re sitting in HagenDaas, I look across the street and what to we see? Yup, the Provincial Museum building.  Except, it’s completely under construction.  So, we ask the young girl and she really has no idea.  She asks another girl and she points back in the direction we came from.  It seems this museum is for tourists and the locals don’t really know much about it.  Well, we saw the building but guess we should have listened to the hotel staff who told us it had moved. 

Time to hail a taxi and head back to our hotel.  Enough adventure for today (Megan has had a really hard day today too.)  Several taxis stop but none want to take us back to the hotel so we walk for several blocks.  It starts to sprinkle then pouring rain.  We duck into a hotel to assess what our options are and the concierge asks if he can help us.  Yes, we need a taxi to get back to our hotel.  No problem, he goes out in the rain and lickety-split has a taxi for us.  Thank you Lord!  The taxi costs more than it should but hey, we’re back to our hotel safely.  After a bit of rest Megan is hungry and wants some ramen again so we walk down to the neighborhood 7-11.  Today we needed some ice cream to go with our ramen and Fanta orange pop.  Although we weren’t successful in buying any local handmade items, we did get a good story and some new experiences.  Time to pack up as tomorrow we head onto Loudi, Hunan.