An Historical Day!

Our last full day in Huhhot was good. We started the day off early as we needed to go apply for MeiMei’s passport. We had to go to a government office where they fill out the paperwork for the passport. First, we had to stop at the notary’s office to pick up the official paperwork for the adoption. We have all those official papers in our backpack. We know from experience how luggage gets lost and it may be forever!

On the way to the office, there was a lot of stopping and starting in the car. It was close to rush hour and we were in the downtown area. Well, we found out that MeiMei gets carsick – the hard way. Puke all over the seat and the floor of the van. At least she kept it off herself and us and our bags. Fortunately, I had wipes in the backpack and we got everything mostly cleaned up. Now she has puked half as many times as Lydia has in her 6 years with us! Hopefully this is not a precursor to what is to come!!! She was fine the rest of the day, so I’m pretty sure it was carsickness. Tomorrow we’ll make sure she sits in the middle seats in the van and I also have some medicine to prevent carsickness.

When we got to the government building, Aggie led the way. She knows how to get things done. We had a bag full of candy as part of a gift we brought for the head of the passport office. She took the bag, opened it, and started handing out candy to the workers. We didn’t have to wait at all! Good things may come to those who wait in America, but good things come to those who give candy in China! They filled out the papers, took MeiMei’s fingerprints and picture and then we went up to another office. There were a bunch of people waiting, so I thought it might take a while, but Aggie just marched up to one of the workers, handed her some candy and she processed our paperwork without a wait. Aggie dropped off the lotion and the 31 bag we brought to the head of the passport department and we were off.

The next stop for us was the Inner Mongolia History Museum. The best exhibit was the dinosaur bones. They have found a bunch of fossils in Inner Mongolia. The second largest dinosaur skeleton in the world was found here and it was in the museum. I have seen dinosaur bones at the history museum in Chicago and New York, but the enormity of this skeleton was overwhelming. Our neighbors LOVE dinosaurs, so Lydia was excited to share pictures with them. We know that even if MeiMei doesn’t know much about dinosaurs yet, she will once she hangs out with Evelyn and Gabe for a while! She wasn’t so sure about the animatronic dinosaurs in the exhibit. But once she found out the were fake, she was ok with them.

There were also some exhibits about the history of the Mongol people, including Genghis Khan. Brian has been reading a book about Genghis Khan on this trip, so it was interesting to him to see some of the actual artifacts from his conquest. Inner Mongolia is also home to 34 ethnic minorities, so the museum had some information about them too. I think Aggie was surprised about how interested we were in the museum. Of course, we are history buffs and museum people, so we wanted to see everything. She told us that if we didn’t hurry, we wouldn’t have time to see it all. I’m pretty sure we didn’t see half of the museum. Oh well, we have to leave something undone for the next time we come!

We headed back to the hotel after the museum and decided to lay low this afternoon. Since we weren’t sure about the puking, we thought going all over town might not be the best thing. We ate goldfish, Lara bars, candy, cookies, and granola bars for lunch and then took a nap. Brian and I started cleaning up the room and got a lot of our stuff packed for tomorrow. Hopefully we can reduce the number of bags we have to take home, but after yesterday’s shopping trip, I’m afraid we might not be traveling as light as we had hoped!

We headed back to the restaurant we ate at yesterday afternoon. I thought of taking a picture of what we wanted so we could order that way. The people who had helped us yesterday were working today, so they helped us again. We really liked the food there and Lydia was especially happy to have her favorite noodle dish and rice dish. MeiMei liked the chicken meat a lot. We had fun eating together and MeiMei was serving us all more food from the dishes. Part way through the meal, an older guy came to our table and started talking to us in Chinese. He brought us cups and then went back and got us some tea. I’m not sure what kind of tea it was. It was a yellowish green color and it had some kind of grain floating in it. It looked kind of like millet.

After supper, Brian suggested that we go find some place for dessert. We decided if we went to McDonald’s we’d know what we were getting, so we headed there. McFlurries were enjoyed by the other three, and I had a hot fudge sundae. Yumm! It’s crazy that McDonald’s is one of the more expensive restaurants in China. We spent 75RMB on our dinner – 3 main dishes, meat skewers, 3 pops and a water, and for 3 McFlurries and a sundae, we spend 41 RMB.

We headed back to the hotel and MeiMei wanted to be carried. Brian carried her part of the way, and she figured out how to hold on. That got her a little further in his arms before he wore out. Lydia wanted to join in the fun too, so I put her on my back once we got close to the hotel.

The girls had a fun time in the bathtub again. The tub is in a separate room with the shower, so they could splash as much as they wanted and all the water would just go into the shower. Hopefully this won’t be a problem when we get home!

They are sleeping soundly now, but Brian and I need to finish packing everything up. We have an early start tomorrow as we head to the orphanage in Baotou. We go there, which is a few hour’s drive, and then head back to Huhhot where we’ll fly down to Guangzhou. We won’t arrive in Guangzhou until after 11pm, so we may not blog. On Friday, we have to be up early again for a medical appointment. Fortunately, Guangzhou has just a few things to do (even though the timing has to be spread out), so we should be able to take it easy for the next week. Hopefully we’ll catch up on the sleep we’ll miss tomorrow!

It will be MeiMei’s first flight. Hopefully she doesn’t get motion sickness in the airplane too! At least she likes Brian, so if we get split up, he’ll have to clean up the puke this time. 😊

Matching, matching again.

Tried the mobi lasted long enough for two photos

One of the best collections of dinosaurs in the world

Eating at our new favorite restaurant in China

McDonalds ice cream

Every city needs a random shrimp seat