On Our Way to Mei Mei

Today we flew from Beijing to Lanzhou.  What an amazing difference in the landscape!  Lanzhou is in the Gansu province and it is very desert-like.  Mountains of clay, little vegetation and few trees. And up out of no where pops the city.  We were starving from not eating breakfast.  They actually served us a hot meal on the plane but we couldn't identify what it was, so we ate the bread and I had a yogurt. LOL Our guide, Jessica, took us to her favorite restaurant in Lanzhou that serves Beef noodles.  Beef Noodles is a famous Gansu province dish and they were delicious!  Jessica said we were the first family to come to Lanzhou and go out for Beef noodles first thing. It was a local restaurant, we were the only Americans and they only had chopsticks.  It was a wonderful way to start our week in Lanzhou!

We settled into our hotel about 12:30 and Rebecca is scheduled to arrive between 2:30-3.  Well about 3 we receive a phone call from our guide that she is stuck in construction traffic and they are now expecting to arrive between 3:40-4.  She finally arrived around 4 pm.  The director and assistant director of the orphanage brought her to out hotel room.  They talked to us about her routine, answered our questions and gave us a wonderful book about Pingliang, then they snuck out.  Amazingly, Rebecca did really well and didn't cry at all.  We played on the floor a little, signed a few papers to get ready for tomorrow and then our guide took us to get her passport picture taken and our first family picture. A storm blew in, so we called it a day and just returned to the hotel, instead of going to pick up a few things we needed.

She is pure joy and we are already in love with her!  We got her to smile a few times and she began to loosen up a little with us.  We just ate at the hotel restaurant and boy, this girl can eat.  She eat just about anything you put in front of her. Tonight she polished off rice, noodles, pork strips, watermelon, another piece of melon and a cookie.

Then we went upstairs, had a warm bottle of milk and went to bed. All of us laid down and passed out at 8 pm (Seems to be our time).  She slept straight through until I woke her at 7:30 am because her big sister and brothers were dying to meet her over Skype.


Janet talking with Director of orphanage about Mei Mei's time in orphanage.

Looking at the city with the assistant director

Getting passport picture taken

 

 

 

Eating dinner in the hotel restaurant

She LOVED the congee (rice porridge)