A trip down memory lane

Today we took a trip down memory lane starting with breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We were seated in the fairly small non-smoking section, which is a raised area without any barrier between it and the main part of the restaurant. All the better to catch the rising smoke, I guess!

Our table was one that we're sure we sat at 7 years ago. There was a wide variety of foods available but no French toast, to Jarrah's chagrin. He still fondly remembers the French toast he had in our hotel in Beijing in 2001. Jade was adventurous and tried a variety of things from the Chinese breakfast buffet. She decided she liked the cherry juice, fried dough, sliced ham (which didn't look anything like ham to me) watermelon and the boiled egg. The rest of us stuck to cereal, eggs and toast. I tried some congee as well but found it bland.

After breakfast we gathered our things and met Allen and our driver in the lobby to go to Mother's Love Orphanage. The trip to the orphanage is through a very undeveloped and poor part of Nanning. The road has no curb and there are no footpaths to speak of and the buildings either side are very third world. The orphanage is as I remembered it up a very narrow hilly driveway. The large building with the statue in the grounds is now a belt factory and the orphanage is in a small building off to the right.

We met Director Liu and exchanged gifts with her. I think she was quite pleased to receive the knitted blankets that we brought. We told her about Jade and two of her batch-mates getting together for the first time since they've been in Australia last July and showed her a photo of the girls on the FCC calendar. She was very pleased to see this and asked if there were other Mother's Love children on the calendar. Unfortunately, we were unable to answer this question for her. She told us that since Nanning SWI is able to care for the smaller number of abandoned babies that Mother's Love no longer has babies. Then the other director Kit Ying came and warmly greeted us. We ended up having several conversations going at once. Thankfully Paul did get the video camera out and photograph some of what was going on.

Kit took us through the few ground floor rooms and we saw the disabled children who now live there. We were told that there were 24 children all together. Some are severely disabled and others go to school at the orphanage and can read. We were shown a wall with bracelets that the children have made. Jade chose a bracelet and I took a photo of her with the girl who made it. I'm not posting this because I want to protect the girl's privacy. Jade also met one of her carers Jin Feng (Gold Phoenix) who remembered her.

bracelets made by the children

When we finished our visit we walked back to our van. Kit Ying accompanied Jade and chatted with her. Jade seems to have taken everything in her stride and is acting her usual self.

This afternoon we went out to have a look at Nanning. We walked to the Nanning Department Store and did some shopping. There are lots and lots of people out and about and we got quite a few looks. Jarrah and I practiced our Chinese on a few people and I, for one, am enjoying putting my language studies to use at long last.

We didn't see any other Westerners when we were out. I think since adoptions are becoming more rare here that there is not much reason for Westerners to come to Nanning. Tomorrow we have a free day and we are going to walk to the large square we remember and the museum which is near it. I'm also still hunting for a recharge cord for my electronic dictionary.

I thought I would show you some photos of our room. We are in two rooms with the connecting doors open. Bringing the laptop is a godsend! We have the facility to download photos and videos to it and here in Nanning our internet connection costs only 5 Yuan ($A1.25) per day. This makes up for Hong Kong where it was about $A70 for the duration of our stay. The Majestic Hotel is exactly as we remembered it--too much so. I don't think they have done anything to the rooms for the last 7 years. Everything looks a bit old and grubby. I can only imagine how many families have been united with their children and spent their first few days together in our room since we were last here. We are up on the 9th floor (the non-smoking floor) and we're pretty lonely here. We saw one American couple in the restaurant this morning but they didn't have a child with them. Jarrah says he heard crying this afternoon so today may have been the day they became a family. We'll see tomorrow at breakfast.