Last night in Hangzhou

Well, it's now Friday morning for us and we fly out of Hangzhou this afternoon a little after 2:00.  We're checking out of our hotel at 11:00, so we're spending the morning getting all our stuff re-packed.  Last night was a little frustrating - we were just getting TongJie to sleep and the phone rang about 9:00 and it was the front desk from the hotel telling us that we had to move rooms because the bathroom in the room next to ours was going to flood.  They wanted us to move right then and immediately sent a bellboy to "help" us move our stuff, but we told him we would do it ourselves because we had stuff everywhere - diapers, dirty clothes, toys, food in the refrigerator, and all our stuff and we didn't really want somebody else who barely spoke English trying to help us figure out how to move all of it.  Luckily, the new room was just a couple doors down so it wasn't far and we eventually got everything moved over but by then TongJie was all wound up again and it took a long time to get him settled down and asleep.  By then we were both so tired that we just went to bed, so this morning it was hard to find things that we needed like diapers, bibs, and clothes because everything had just gotten thrown haphazardly into bags.  We're about to take everything out and re-pack in a few minutes.

Yesterday evening we walked with Sarah and the other family to a Chinese restaurant about a 20 minute walk away from our hotel.  Sarah ordered a bunch of different dishes that she thought we might like to try, and it was served family-style on the biggest "lazy susan" I've ever seen.  We brought rice cereal for TongJie, but he also ate some of the food that we were having, like rice, cooked vegetables, and melons.  His eating makes me nervous that he's going to choke because of his cleft palate and because he stuffs it into his mouth so fast if we let him feed himself, so we cut up his food into tiny pieces and watch him like a hawk.  The Chinese food was delicious and there were a lot of things that were new to us.  It seemed like a pretty fancy restaurant and there was a LOT of food, but it was only the equivalent of about $5 per person in US dollars - really cheap!

We walked a different way on the way back to our hotel, through the West Lake area that Hangzhou is famous for.  It was a lovely evening.  There were people everywhere, just walking around, attending an outdoor concert, shopping or eating at open-air restaurants.  We happened to walk by right when they were starting a fountain and light show on the lake, so we watched for a few minutes.  We saw a huge dragon boat and I took some pictures, but it was impossible to capture what everything really looked like.  We feel a little sad for TongJie that today is his last day in his province and he doesn't even know it.  We want to come back someday when he's older.  Last night we were talking to Michelle, the other mom who adopted a little girl, and she was saying that she thinks that Hangzhou is now not just her favorite city in China, but her favorite city anywhere.  I can't say that I agree, because Wenatchee is my favorite city, but maybe for a city to visit Hangzhou might be my favorite.  But I haven't been to very many cities.

We should arrive in Guangzhou this evening.  I'd better finish this post because I have to spell Jeff as TongJie is getting really fussy.  Thanks to all of you who have been following our blog!  Here's some pictures of yesterday evening at the restaurant and the dragon boat, and one from breakfast this morning.  Have I mentioned that TongJie loves to eat?  :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Jeff asked at the front desk (with the help of Sarah) if we could have our internet access for free because of the inconvenience of having to move last night, and they said yes.