Baotou

So…we didn’t think we’d get a chance to blog tonight, but thanks to getting to the airport 2 hours early, and a 1 hour and 45-minute delay, we are sitting here with nothing to do!

We left early this morning to make the trip to Baotou, Xuan Xuan’s hometown. We had to have all our stuff packed up and ready to go. Because of our shopping trip, we weren’t packing as light as we were thinking we might be! We took 2 trips from our room down to the lobby to get everything down. We had the suitcases, plus we also had the gifts and sleepers that we had for the orphanage. The mini-vans here are a little smaller than the ones we have in the states, so it was a tight squeeze! Lydia and I sat in the back with some of the suitcases. We thought we better have MeiMei sit in the middle to try to eliminate some of the carsickness.

I gave her some “natural” motion sickness medicine because I only had full strength Bonine and I wasn’t sure how much of that I should give her. Well, we made it a little while, but sure enough – puke! Of course, we didn’t have any bags handy, so it went all over the floor again. (Lydia said we better give the driver a really good tip, since he’d have to clean up 2 puke messes in 2 days!) We got it cleaned up and I made an SOS call to my sister-in-law, Jaime, who deals with motion sickness herself and with her kids. I ended up giving MeiMei Bonine, but she puked about 10 minutes later. ☹ So I don’t think that any of it got into her system. By that time, her stomach was pretty much empty. She fell asleep for a little bit and we got to the orphanage without any more incidents.

When we got to the Baotou orphanage, we were welcomed by Ms. Xue, the dean who had brought MeiMei to Huhhot for our Family Day. They didn’t say I couldn’t take pictures, so I started snapping them left and right. We were hoping to meet the director of the orphanage, but he was in meetings or something, so we didn’t meet him.

We found out that MeiMei had been in some sort of foster family for the past month or so within the orphanage, but they were in Beijing for winter camp, so we didn’t get to meet them. They did show us a work room where children and adults with disabilities work making bead crafts. They sell the crafts for donations to the orphanage, so we bought a TON to bring home as gifts.

Then they took us up to see the kids who were in the same room as MeiMei. She was like a celebrity when she walked into the room. They were all hugging her and they wanted to meet her JieJie (Big Sister). They were all impressed with Lydia. I asked about taking pictures and they said it was ok. I couldn’t believe it. When we first walked in there was a sign that there were no picture allowed, but they didn’t mind when I asked.

We headed downstairs where we went to the sleeping room. The kids all crawled into their beds and started taking off the layers that the Chinese feel is healthy for everyone to wear. I guess since they were going to sleep under covers, they could take their coats off! I always thought that it was only children that they bundled up, but being here in the winter, I see that the adults stay bundled up too. They wear their coats inside over layers and layers of clothes. They keep the buildings to warm too. Usually, I’m all about staying warm, but this is a little excessive! Rant over… We saw the bed and the room where MeiMei stayed most recently, and then met some of her teachers.

There is a school connected to the orphanage where the kids go for lessons. It looked like she had been going there for preschool and now for kindergarten. We got some of her school books when they brought her to us. We met the teachers and we could tell that some of them were very close to MeiMei. A few of them were crying and hugging her a lot. I could tell that they care about her and for her very much. It made both Brian and I very emotional seeing them and her crying.

I’m so thankful that she had as good of an experience as an orphanage can be. There was a lot of love and care for the kids there. Ms. Xue also cared so much for the children. It is nice to see that in a culture where some kids are not valued, there are people who see the great value in them. It was such and emotional visit. I’m so glad that we got to go and see where MeiMei lived for the first 5 ½ years of her life. Not very many people have been allowed to go to the orphanage in the past 5 or 6 years, so this was a great gift. We thank the Lord that He allowed the authorities to have a favorable response to our request to go.

After the orphanage, we headed to a Mongolian Hot Pot restaurant. Hot pot is a traditional Mongolian food. We had it one other time in California with my cousins whose daughter is also from Inner Mongolia. The restaurant we went to in Baotou was amazingly the same chain that they have in California!!! Hot pot is an interesting concept. You go to the restaurant, order some food that is uncooked. They bring you a pot of boiling broth, put it on a hot plate and then you choose what uncooked food you want to cook in your broth. We had beef, lamb, vegetables, and noodles. It was all sooo good. Lydia LOVED it!!! One option they had for adding to the broth was some kind of mushroom – really tall, small mushrooms. I’m not sure what they’re called, but Lydia decided to try some – without knowing they were mushrooms. I wasn’t about to tell her what they were. As many of you know, mushrooms are Lydia’s least favorite food.  Well, she really liked them! When I told her what they were, she was completely grossed out, but still said they were good! Our driver, Mr. Oo (I have know idea how it’s spelled), also ate with us. He got some of the food from the buffet for us. He brought us a bowl full of what we thought was cold soup. We tried to eat it. It was not so tasty. It had a really strong flavor. I wasn’t sure what, but I couldn’t choke down a whole bowlful! Come to find out, it was peanut sauce to dip the food in after it was cooked! No wonder it was so strong for a soup!!! Oh the things we do when we are learning a new culture!

After hot pot, I asked Aggie to stop at a Starbucks that I had seen just around the corner. One of my friends collects Starbucks mugs with the different towns in China. She didn’t have a Baotou, so I had to go find one! There wasn’t a parking lot nearby, so the driver stopped across the street and told me to hurry. I had to cross the 8 lanes of traffic to get there. Remember Frogger? That was me today. I just followed a Chinese person and hoped that I made it! I’m glad I did. The Baotou mug is really cool. It says Baotou, of course, but it also has some of the sites of the city and yurts, traditional Mongolian homes, on the back. I got the mugs and also got to experience cross the street like a real Chinese person!

There was one more puking incident after lunch. I’m not sure what we’re going to do to get this under control. Hopefully smoother roads, less jerking around, and a higher seat will help when we get home. Just pray that it’s only car sickness and not plane sickness too.

We stopped at MeiMei’s finding spot on the way out of town. It was originally at a school, but the school moved and it’s now a factory. It was kind of sad because it looked so abandoned and miserable. I’m sure 5 years ago it was a nice school with people around, but today it was just dirty and run down.

We headed back to Huhhot. MeiMei slept most of the way and there was no more puking – yeah! Aggie decided to stop at the passport office to see if by chance the passport was ready. And, yes! It was ready for us to pick up. I’m so glad. She was planning to send it to us in Guangzhou, but it feels much better knowing that we have it in our hands. 😊 We headed to the airport and here we are. We are almost ready to board the airplane now. There’s not time to add pictures, so I’ll add them tomorrow. Sorry for those of you who are dying to see us!!!

Happy Thanksgiving – our dinner was chips, coke, and Oreos – at least that’s pretty American!