Let me skip ahead one minute and get to the crux - April exceeded our wildest hopes. We thought she would be distraught and overcome by the visit. The only time she started to cry was when she said goodbye to her best friend Anna (her family lives in Seattle and we hope to visit them after they bring her home and keep the kids in touch in the future). Aside from that, April was phenomenal. She always came back to us, wanted to do so on her own, and was very alert and attentive to us and the many staff and nannies who obviously cared for her deeply. We were able to let them pick her up, hug her, and hold her without incident.
We arrived at the train station to be greeted like celebrities by the local paparazzi. Evidently the orphanage had arranged quite a welcome and wanted to document the 3 families who had just adopted at the same time (a rare occurence) and were visiting their child's orphanage. We think the 2 TV cameras were from different stations, but are not sure. We spent a lot of the visit posing and being interviewed at different sites (train station, arrival at orphanage, after lunch, and multiple times during the orphanage tour.
Aside - we are now used to being the center of attention. People touch Bennett's cheek or pat his head or at least stare (in a friendly way), given he is cute Western child. As our guide said, you think Chinese children are so cute, we think foreign children are so cute! Add in April to our family and we stick out like a sore thumb.
Back to the visit. The place is large, well staffed, has a beautiful setting, and is spotless. The staff is professional and very welcoming. As we arrived we were interviewed again by the TV crews and did endless poses for the TV crews and staff (who all had cameras). Our guide Michael in Nanjing went above and beyond (as usual) and took many photos of us for our own use while lugging the bags of shoes we had brought most of the visit.
We were treated to an amazing lunch with many courses and multiple dishes in each course. The only negative was Captain Fearless was terrified (shocker!) by the crabs on one plate and spent lunch in terror that they would get him. The dishes included different kinds of chicken, vegetables, fish, crabs, fruit, soup, egg, pancakes, beer, soda, beef, and dumplings, to name a few. After waddling out and visiting the facilities, we started the tour.
We saw the room and the bed she slept in, visited with her friends and other kids, and got a chance to meet, give messages from waiting families who will be traveling soon, and take pictures and videos to share later. We toured other rooms including viewing from the outside the baby rooms. It was really hard to walk by all the kids in the cribs, but they looked well cared for, albeit not with parents right now. And no, you are not allowed to bring home more. We would have in a heartbeat.
We even got to visit and take pictures of the place where April was found.
Xuzhou was much larger (1M people plus) and prettier then we expected.
- Lisa & Mark
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