activites of the day...

Today, Monica took us to visit the TengWeng Pavillion. It is a very elaborate building, however, rebuilt 20 some times due to various reasons of destruction, the most recent rebuilding in 1997. She hurried us through in her typical fashion and then left us to wander more leisurely through the gardens while she went to get a table at a restaurant for lunch. (Our table was in a private little dining room with our own server, one of at least two dozen down a long hall of a huge restaurant.)

We watched a short program of dancing and music typical of the Tang Dynasty while a couple of people marveled to Monica that our babies sure looked a lot like Chinese babies.... They are Chinese babies she told them and told them we were adopting them. They did not say anything else. This is another time I begin to feel like we are stealing her away from her country as people all around stare at us.

Here Dave and Neela are ringing the good luck bell. You are supposed to gong the bell 10 times. (After you are done, you find out it is 35 yuan, just under $5, to ring the bell...I guess you have to pay for your luck here.)


This evening we went to Walmart (yes, Walmart) with our new best friends, Doug and Laura from Burnsville, MN and their new son, Peter. I am happy to say we made it there and back alive, along with all of the other drivers and pedestrians in our path, despite the crazy driving of our cabbie. I think you cannot fully experience the culture until you have ridden in the back seat of a cab through the streets of China! The excitement was worth the $1.30 cab fare.

Tomorrow we are very lucky to be able to go and visit the orphanage as families are not usually allowed to visit. Upon arriving here, we found out that she was not actually living in the main part of the orphanage, but rather in a sort of foster family that lives in an apartment of sorts within the building. A couple agrees to live there and care for 6 children in a setting more like a family. Neela was the youngest in her "family". I am not completely sure, but it seems she probably lived with them from the time she arrived at the orphanage, which probably gave her a better start in life.

Until tomorrow.....

--Marnie