Blogs from Hunan, China, Asia - page 22

Last night with the help of 2 new friends I checked into a really fancy hotel for $15 a night - pretty steep compared to what I've been paying. I got into the room at 3am as we'd gotten off the train at 2:30am. It took me a little while to get to sleep. Right before I did at around 4am I got scared awake by someone with the key coming in except that I'd dead bolted it. Turned out they'd been given the same room as me and with a call back to the maid I was apologized to and left alone. Very strange again. I'm half expecting someone to come in again. My legs are itching from the leech bites - I have 28 of them. I'm giong to have to get some medicine ... read more

I suppose maybe Michael's right. Maybe if I go back to the US it would be the same. Being a hairdresser here people sometimes treat you as if you're on the same level as a janitor. So I get strange reactions when I tell people Cam is a hairdresser. As I told Michael I think he's doing a lot better than I am. He has goals, knows what he wants to do and is good at getting money. Today was a lazy day. I slept most of the day as there's little much else to do. There's a really cute little girl staying in our compartment. Her grandmother has pretty strict control over her and is constantly yelling at her - something I don't think I would be comfortable doing and teaches them very little. She ... read more

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 it up with some filter coffee (first cup in China), the smelly boat a distant memory, what a moment, small things small traveling minds... Then topped it off with noodles from a street stall in ... read more

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 tired and/or busy, and can’t hold her…she starts to cry. I think it must have been a baby like Sarah who was the object when the term “cry-baby” was first coined! Stacey and I both agree ... read more

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 asleep as the room service arrived at 4:30 a.m. This morning, she was doing real well at the breakfast buffet, which include congee (the rice soup that she enjoyed in the orphanage). She was fine ... read more