Today, some of the families that adopted children from Yangdong province were given the opportunity to visit the Yangdong Social Welfare Institute (the orphanage). The orphanage is located about 300 km away, so while we knew the day would be long, it was something we had looked forward to doing.
Complicating matters was the fact that a typhoon was scheduled to hit land just north of Yangdong in the late afternoon!!!
We boarded the bus at 8:00 am and the weather was already pretty bad. If only we knew how bad it was going to get:)
The trip down was uneventful as we passed out of Guangzhou into the countryside. It was four lane highway all the way so the roads were good. The countryside is quite different, very lush and green with lots of fish farming (and rice fields). You could see mountains in the distance and we crossed several very large rivers (I believe they are tributaries of the Pearl River).
The orphanage is located in the city of Yanjiang (which I believe is the provincial capital of Yangdong Province). It is a small city relative to Guangzhou or Beijing (only 2.5 million inhabitants) but looked quite nice and modern from what we could see (by now the wind and rain are quite strong). Yangdong is known for two things: it is a famous manufacturing centre for knives and every September they have a kite festival in town (a whole square is devoted to kite flying).
The director of the orphanage met us in town and we followed him to the orphanage. It is a nice building with a courtyard where the children can play. We got a chance to visit with the nannies that took care of Sophie and ask them questions (one of the interesting tid-bits we learned was the pronunciation of Sophie's name in Cantonese (something like FY -FY). It was an emotional time visiting the orphanage, knowing that it will likely be the last time that Sophie will see her birth city and where she spent the first 11 months of her life.
Afterwards, the orphanage director took us to lunch at a local restaurant and we were treated to a veritable feast of food (very fancy restaurant). We then decided to head back home around 2:30 as the weather was getting very bad.
Let me tell you folks, the ride home was a bit hairy. We can now appreciate what the people in Florida go through during hurricane season. The wind and rain were incredible and the road was littered with debris and uprooted trees. What was supposed to be a 3 hour ride took us nearly five hours to complete and was complicated by the fact that we had trouble finding a gas station that was open (the power had been knocked out).
After what seemed like an eternity, we made it back to Guangzhou where we went to our room and ordered room service (the most expensive pizza I've ever had, $50 US for three personal pizzas and two beer - not everything here is cheap).
We've now crashed into bed. There is no rush to get up tomorrow but it will be a busy day as we leave for Beijing in the afternoon. As it is unlikely that we will get into our hotel in Beijing much before ten, I will not be posting a blog tomorrow but will resume the day after tomorrow. It will be sad to leave Guangzhou. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to see the city which appears cleaner and nicer than Beijing. We will certainly miss this fantastic hotel and its incredible swimming pool. Hopefully, the weather will clear enough for one more swim.
A word about the pictures: with this new program, I have to post pictures in batches. This batch of two pictures features Stephanie and Sophie in their matching t-shirts (I'm the big sister and I'm the little sister). The second picture is one of my favourites taken of Sophie sleeping in the snugli as we travel by bus to Yangdong. I'll post a few more pictures of the orphanage in a separate post.
Missing you all (Only 8 more days until our return).
Love, Chris, Caroline, Stephanie and Sophie.
