Shenyang Part II

Well, we are finally just about caught up on life to date in the world of Shenyang.

We are staying at the Intercontinental Hotel, which is part of the Holiday Inn chain, so it's fairly westernized. There are alot of Germans also staying here, supposedly due to the heavy car trade. The contrast from our days in Nanchang in 2006 is very different. In front of the hotel, there are 10 lanes of traffic - and directly in front of the hotel is a mini sidewalk (?) except cars and motorcycles drive on it, just around the pedestrians! It's very bizarre. Trying to cross the street at any given time, is ridiculous as the traffic barely stops, even at red lights. This morning, we had to basically hook ourselves on to a Chinese family as they dodged and darted across multiple lanes of speeding traffic, in order to cross the street. Last night, as we were crossing the street with Veronica, she just held up her hand to stop traffic - some stopped, some kept on speeding around us, all while Kyle was screaming "Mommy, Daddy, I don't like this. Don't do this. This is not safe!" If you haven't noticed already, Kyle is our safety policeman. So far, he has also pointed out that people bike with multiple people on one bicycle (some with seats, some without)and no one wears a helmet.

This city is more modern than Nanchang - it is full of taller buildings and actually some wealthier stores. There is no meat hanging from people's windows, curing in the polluted air either! Supposedly, they have very harsh winters here, so few venture out until the late Spring and summer. The streets were filled with people last night. The weather is much more comfortable, too. Just a little bit of humidity and temps in the lower 80's.

Next to our hotel, we have a KFC, an English Pub, a dessert place, Starbucks and then a neon strip of Chinese restaurants. We also spotted a Haagen Daaz earlier today, right around the corner. In Nanchang, we didn't have any of that locally to our hotel.

The last time that we were in China, smoking was very prevalent and spitting was big, too. Much has changed. Now everywhere we go pretty much has a smoking OR a non-smoking section and you don't see as many folks smoking at all. Supposedly, they are getting more healthy now. However, Veronica told us that cigarettes are extremly cheap, like 40-50 cents a piece, so they are easy to buy and use.

Veronica has been speaking with Ms. Pan daily about our impending meeting with Dylan. Supposedly, he has done very well in the orphanage. Veronica told us that the Dalian SWI is one of the best and cleanest orphanages that she has ever visited, so that is a bit comforting, I guess. She said to us yesterday that Ms. Pan's first question to her about us was confirmation that we would be staying in China for at least 7 more days post getting Dylan, due to the H1N1 virus issues. I guess she wants to be ready to track us down, if necessary!! We will meet Dylan tomorrow a.m. at the local Civil Affairs office. Then we will travel to Dalian on Tuesday afternoon (about a 4.5 hour local bus ride - can't wait for that!) to get his passport and do more paperwork. We are not allowed to go in the orphanage due to the H1N1 issues, but Veronica said that we could go around the outside for a visit and do a few local stops in Dalian itself. We will then stay overnight and travel back here on Wednesday.

This a.m., we all walked to a local park a few blocks from the hotel. Kyle found a little Chinese boy who wanted to play soccer with him, so Kyle, Charlie and the little boy placed several rounds of the soccer game. We then got their picture together. It was very cute. Before the game, Kyle chose to try a local delight of some sort of honeydew melon popsicle, but only took about 3 licks before he was ready to be done with it. It didn't taste too badly, but I can't say that it was one of my favorite flavors (our other choice was a milk popsicle -- yum). The park was filled with people, so Kyle played in a playground with other children for a long time. Then we had a little girl come over to us, who was 6 yrs. old, and speak to us in rapid fire Chinese with a few English words thrown in. She was very proud of her English and promptly sang us a few rounds of 10 Little Indians and 10 Little Apples. She also did some sort of Asian dancing for us, and was extremely graceful in all of her moves. She definitely was very extroverted and very cute. During our time in the park, we also visited some sort of historical monument room, which I'll have to confirm the name of later. It's too hard to remember all of the Chinese history now. Our guide told us that she has to learn lots and lots of history, for all of the Provinces. That cannot be easy. We spent a very long time today speaking with her about the Chinese way of life and the differences from the U.S. It was very interesting to hear and learn so much.

Lastly, just in case we get hungry at night, we have some "tempting" things to order from on our room service menu. I could bring a few samples home of: double boiled pigeon with ginseng and red dates; jellyfish with vinegar; or mixed soybean with boiled kelp. Just put in your orders now!!

The boys are down trying out the pool now, so I am going off to join them.

We'll probably post later on tomorrow night. Still trying to find a camera USB cord which is not readily available, we are quickly finding out. We have to visit a special electronics store tomorrow, on our way back from Civil Affairs.