There's an entry missing here I think, so perhaps the beginning is a little confusing . . . The morning after we arrived in Changsha, we met Han's friend "Marco" at his old high school in the city. He graduated last year and now attends a college in the US, a small liberal arts college in New York. I believe he said he was studying economics and math, what he called "the usual" for Chinese students. There were no foreign teachres around because the school year had already ended, but he showed us around the buildings of the school. Some students [View Full Entry]

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David. Well we were both quite sad to leave wulingyuan as it was so beautiful, but what better way to banish our blues than a bit of Chairman Mao mania? The train journey from Zhangjaijie to Changsha was the shortest that we had made in China so we went for hard seats instead of sleeper. The only thing of note on the journey was the group of chinese journalists who were sat with us. They were really friendly, really interested in the UK and just made up that we had decided to visit China. The journey flew by chatting away to [View Full Entry]

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Bec So following the river cruise we eagerly (well as eager as you can be at 6 am in the morning) clambered off the boat and caught a taxi into Yishang to catch a train to Zhangjiajie later on that day. Yishang is famed as being the gateway to the Three Gorges Dam (big monstrosity hydroelectric project bla bla bla) however it is now famed for making david and bec very happy. We not only had some sunshine for the first time in days, we also stumbled upon a coffee shop (sorry to sound really saaaaad) but we sat there lording [View Full Entry]

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In china we discovered a new game, its called the bus lottery and and works like this. You pay some guy at a desk a load of money to get a bus from one city to the other and he shows you a load of photos of a brand new, up to date, top of the range with all mod cons bus that can do everything short of fly and assures you that its VIP. Then you go to the bus station and wait. and wait, and wait and pray that thats not your bus. but it usually is. The morning [View Full Entry]

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On just the third day, Sarah has already earned a nickname. As if she isn’t already confused enough with the new language and new names (Sarah Michelle, Lai Jing - her new Chinese name), now we’ve gotten to calling her “Ah-boo-boo”!  She’s got this incredibly cute manner of bubbling with her lips when she’s pouting. I suppose it’s our way of finding faces in the clouds during a thunderstorm, and this girl sure does rain tears a lot. Sarah’s still very needy and clingy, and will rarely sit or walk on her own. So, when mama or baba are [View Full Entry]

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As I (Stacey) write this, it’s around 10pm Wednesday here in Changsha. I have egg from this morning’s breakfast smeared on my shirt, dried pumpkin remnants on my pants, and I smell like baby sweat. But it’s been a wonderful day, and we’re thankful beyond words for our daughter and for your pr—ers on our behalf, your words of encouragement and experience, and your willingness to read our journal. We know you’re standing with us, and we know that many of you have literally stood up in the middle of the night, walking a fussy baby and pr--ing for mercy too! [View Full Entry]

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Thanks again for reading, writing comments and emails, and pr-ing for us...it means sooooo much. As you're reading this now, we'd appreciate it if you send up another one on our behalf. We're pretty beat up...it's only been 24 hours and little baby Sarah's been bawling for about 7 of those. Part of it is our fault...we just didn't have the right food ready to feed her last night when she woke up for her midnight feeding (according to her charts, she eats four times a day, roughly every six hours). After a couple of hours of anguish, she finally fell [View Full Entry]

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She’s here! Whoo-hoo! Sarah’s finally come home…and mommy and daddy couldn’t be happier. Sarah, on the other hand, could have been. She’s been crying off and on ever since we got on the bus to return to the hotel, and it was only in the past few hours that she’s calmed down and seemed to be at peace. Right now she’s sleeping, and she’s just absolutely adorable. We just love looking at her!  The meeting actually started off much better than we expected. We walked into the room with a lot of excitement, and saw her immediately among 3 o [View Full Entry]

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Mt Hengshan in known as the Southern Peak, or Nanyue, consists of 72 peaks, and rises 1266m above sea level, although it felt like a lot more! This was my first real mountain, and I reached the summit on July the 4th with 2 mates that I met on the local basketball courts; Socrates and Chen Yue. Together, we laughed all the way up on our 11hr hike, everyone helping each other with every difficulty encountered. It was spectacular. We got lost, found dead ends, had to retrace our path, took a stupidly long route, and at the top I [View Full Entry]

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WooHoo! I've managed to add this town into this website, and I feel all proud.. Seeing as I lived here 16 years ago, lots of the retired teachers seem to expect me to remember them! C'mon, I was three years old! I feel a bit strange about constantly being praised about things I feel I have (or had) no influence/control over -such as my height, (I seem to tower over most chinese) and my English, which I was inevitably going to pick up, seeing as that's where I grew up. Things I actually worked for (like exams, extra-currricular activities and voluntary [View Full Entry]

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