On To Nanjing

Today, we spent the morning packing and then going to Shanghai Aquarium with Shelley's friends Ed and Jen from business school - and their two adorable kids Mia and Ian. After a romp around the aquarium we enjoyed "american-style" food at ElementFresh - a must visit forAmericans seeking salads, smoothies and other healthy items.

We then loaded up our rather large contingent of suitcases and headed for the train station via the assistance of our temporary guide "Joe" who bore both a physical and emotional resemblence to the Chinese version of the Bad News Bears. 

In Waiting Room 8 (which is about the size of the Meadowlands) we spent an hour where Dan, Shelley and Peter were literally the only non-chinese looking folks in a room of what seemed like 500 folks.  (pictures attached). We took a highly efficient train ride of about 2 hours from Shanghai to Nanjing. Strangely there was a British or Australian pair sitting right behind us. 

Upon arrival in Nanjing (quite a lovely city), we met our guide Lily and checked into the Nanjing Grand Hotel. We tried to order Shelley a glass of wine via room service and after first getting vodka and then rum, we determined that to the good folks in room service "American Wine" is actually hard liquor. She settled for a beer. This is actually a similar story to one that involved a visit to a pharmacy in Shanghai which I won't share here...

Tomorrow is the big day where we get Guang Jin (10am Nanjing Time, 9pm Washington, DC time). We are all excited but no one more than Clara June who is literally jumping up and down about it. 

Quite amazing that we are 1/2 a day away from getting child #2 - after a very long odyssey indeed.