JAMAICAN LATTES AND CHAIRMAN MAO -- JUNE 19, 2009

We have had such a great time the past two days, there has been no time for journaling activities. So I'll tell you a few things that I found either interesting, amusing, or both.
On the morning of Friday, June 19th, we packed our bags and got ready to leave ShangHai. Due to rush hour traffic it took over two hours to get to the airport, though we arrived in plenty of time. We got to our gate, and after about 40 minutes we heard the announcement that our flight would be delayed anyway. Although we had a huge breakfast at our hotel, by the time 2:00 p.m rolled around we were hungry again, and we decided to get some lunch at the little cafe in our departure gate area. They served such a variety of foods, and Perrie saw "Jamaican latte" on the menu, so she ordered one. Now here is where each member of our travel party has a different idea of just WHAT WAS IN THAT LATTE. We all sipped it, and it definitely had a strong smell and taste of alcohol. Please remember that Perrie is 16 years old, so we don't normally give her alcoholic beverages. This was quite intriguing....I thought it tasted like Kahlua, Caitlin thought it tasted like rum, Hannah thought it tasted "weird", and Paul thought it might be some strange spice we have never encountered before. The rum theory may be good because Jamaica is a big exporter of rum.....so I guess we will never know if Perrie's latte was spiked with rum, Kahlua, or just a strange spice. She didn't finish it in any case, as our flight was called and we had to leave.

We had a very smooth and comfortable flight from ShangHai to NanChang. Upon landing in NanChang we met our guide. He has taken an American name to make things easier for us, and he chose the name Coby. He pointed out that it is NOT spelled the same as the famous Kobe Briant the basketball player (I probably misspelled Kobe's last name). Of course being the kind of people we are, namely NOSY, we asked Coby what his Chinese name is. His name is GuiPing, which we like just as much as Coby.
Coby is 27 years old, and he has a girlfriend. He plans to marry her before he turns 30. I bet none of Coby's other tour guests ever interviewed him as thoroughly as we did....poor guy! Coby is wonderful, very funny, easy going, and so knowledgeable about this part of China. We left the airport and began the two hour drive up to the top of LuShan (which means Lu Mountain). To stay that the road was curvy is an understatement. The twists and turns give new meaning to the word hairpin turn. I thought for sure I would throw up all over the van due to motion sickness. As I gulped down breaths of air to keep from getting car sick, Coby entertained us with the history of the road we were traveling.
Chairman Mau loved LuShan, and he visited this area on three separate occasions. Mau wanted to know just how many curves there are in the road, so he devised a method of counting them that was foolproof. Mau had four boxes of matches...each box held 100 matches. As his driver went around each curve in the road, Mau would throw one match out the window. After many long hours he reached the top of LuShan. All the matches were gone. Ah, he said to his aide, you see there are 400 curves in this road. Cautiously, his aide ventured "Sir, I think there are only 396 curves". No, said Chairman Mau, all 400 matches are gone, so there are 400 curves in the road. Still more cautiously, his aide said, "But Chairman Mao, you are forgetting that four times we stopped along the road, and each time you smoked one cigarette. Therefore, there are only 396 curves in the road to LuShan." And of course he was right, and Chairman Mao admitted so.
Even if this is not true, it makes for a great story, and gives insight into the character of Chairman Mao. Later, I will tell you more things I learned about him and this special place.
When we arrived at our hotel, it was after 6:00 p.m. Our guide helped us check into our room, then suggested that perhaps we would like to walk to a nearby restaurant. So around 7:00 we headed down the mountain road a little ways until we came to an old building that was lit with spotlights and had picnic tables set up around it. The building was like something one might see in Europe or the United States....a rather large stone building that had a definite Western look about it. Coby told us it used to belong to an American missionary back around 1900. Many British and American missionaries had summer homes up here to get away from the heat of the cities down in the valleys. Today these buildings are part of the national park system here, and this one was being used as a restaurant with outdoor seating. Coby ordered some great food for us, our favorite being fresh fish caught in one of the nearby lakes.
We had a pleasant walk back to our hotel after dinner, and got ready for bed, promising to meet at the breakfast bar in the morning around 8:00. Paul and I have one room, Hannah and Perrie have another room, and Marilyn, Madeline, and Caitlin all share one room. Paul and I checked out the TV channels, but only found all the stations only broadcast in Chinese, unlike the ShangHai TV stations that offer a lot of programming in English. We ended up watching part of a Hong Kong police drama that had English subtitles. It was actually a good movie, but I feel asleep before it ended.
Everything is going so well here....I am happy that the Cleeff family also came along because Hannah and Madeline are like sisters already. They talk, talk, talk all day long and never seem to run out of things to say. I don't think they heard a single word Coby told us about the history surrounding us, but they seem so happy just being together and sharing this homecoming....today I heard them say "well we are Chinese" in response to something that else that someone said, and it made me so proud to hear them embrace their birth culture. Don't get me wrong....they are very American teenage girls, and proud to be Americans, but here in China they also get the chance to be proud of their Chinese roots.

This is a picture of the three girls plus our guide Coby using the laptop in our room at the GuoMei Hotel in LuShan

YU GARDEN, THE BUND, RIVER CRUISE IN SHANGHAI

Hannah and Madeline at Yu Garden in ShangHai.

This is where we stood on the bridge overlooking the HuangPu River. From this site you can see the area known as the Bund (a German word for marketplace) with the imposing Russian Embassy in the background. Normally we would have walked along the river in the Bund District, but it is all torn up due to the construction of an underground road that will ultimately free up the area for pedestrians.

Hannah sipped a Sprite as she watched the night lights from air-conditioned comfort inside the cabin during our river cruise.

This is one of the advertising barges that cruised up and down the river...they were amazing, with Jumbo-Tron type screens that seemed to plug everything from Budweiser beer to baby food.

June 18, 2009 Afernoon and Evening in ShangHai

Pictured above left: The Last Family at Yu Garden

Pictured above right: The Cleef Family at Yu Garden

Well, yesterday, June 18th, after a fabulous lunch above the embroidery shop, we headed over to the Yu Gardens, which are over 450 years old. Surrounding the gardens themselves, which are walled off and require a small admission price to go inside, is a shopping area with market stalls selling everything from Chinese art work to Starbucks coffee. It was very eclectic, feeling both ancient and very modern at the same time. The gardens were magnificent, and after our tour, Laura gave us some free time to roam around the market area.

This is a Dragon's Head, one of many ornate carvings we saw on the roofs and porticos of Yu Garden

It is a lucky thing that China is a very very safe place for foreigners because Hannah and Madeline did something that in many other big metropolitan cities could have ended tragically. They were walking through the marketplace together when they were approached by a young woman who asked them to come upstairs to a small art gallery. Guess what ..... they forgot all those lessons about "stranger danger" and they willingly went up into a strange building, entered a room with a stranger, closed the door, and stayed there a while to look at some art. Meanwhile we were running around like crazy looking for them.
All was well, and they returned at the appointed time and met up with us in front of the Starbucks. Now if this had been a different sort of city, they could have ended up on a milk carton and we might never have seen them again. Thank God ShangHai is a place filled with generous, honest people for the most part.
After our visit to the Yu Garden district, we drove over the Bund, a German word for marketplace. The Bund is located along the river and it is where the big ships used to dock at the turn of the 1900s to buy silk and jade, and to sell opium to the local Chinese people. Many European embassies are still located in the Bund and we saw magnificent old buildings built in the style of the country represented. The Russian Embassy is particularly lovely. Of course opium is not traded along the Bund these days, it is a financial and business district, and of course a historic district.
Next, we went to another shopping district, this time along the Nanjing Road, which is a 3.4 mile shopping area reminiscent of New York or downtown Chicago. Very upscale shops, lots of

Perrie and Hannah at Yu Garden

great clothes and shoes for sale. After trailing the kids through a couple of department stores, Paul, Cathy, and Marilyn opted to sit at a sidewalk cafe and down a few beers. Paul even got his picture drawn in charcoal by a local artist.
Back to the comfort of our air-conditioned van (it is quite warm and humid here), and we were taken to yet another excellent restaurant where we were presented with dish after dish after dish of delicious food served to us on a big lazy Susan in the middle of the table. At one point Hannah spun the lazy Susan so vigoursly that a few dishes spun right off onto the table tops.
After dinner we took a night cruise along the HuangPu River. Our boat was like a big yacht, with four decks, a bar, and even a magician performing in the downstairs lounge. The lights in ShangHai at night are sort of like the lights of Las Vegas. Everything is lit up with bright neon colors, and it seems like the architecture in the new part of the city is right out of The Jetsons, meaning ultra-modern and very cool to look at. There is a huge contrast between old ShangHai with its prim European architecture, and new ShangHai with its neon lights, floating barges that sport Jumbo-Tron TV screens advertising everything from Budweiser to baby food. We were very surprised to witness these giant barges that are equipped with Jumbo-Tron type TVs like you might see at a baseball or football stadium. The barges go up and down the river, day and night, with huge moving ads displaying products, services, and even financial firms in glowing color.
By the time the cruise was over and we were back to our hotel room it was after 10:00 p.m. and we all went to bed. Today we got up and enjoyed another delicious breakfast. Soon we will board the van for the long drive back to Pudong airport....in daytime traffic it may take us 2 hours to reach the airport. Then we will have one hour flight to NanChang, then a 3 hour drive to Mt. Lushan, where we will check into the GuoMei Hotel and begin the next part of our journey. The Lu Mountains are a national park, and they are located in the province that Hannah would have lived in if we did not adopt her.....we want to see what she may have seen had she been able to live here instead of joining us in America.

WHO'S YOUR DADDY????

June 18, 2009

Following our morning at the museum, but before we went shopping at the pearl factory, an interesting thing happened. Our daughter Perrie is very exotic looking, she is of Khmer ancestry, and has beautiful coffee-and-cream colored skin. As we watched a fountain and pigeons in a pretty city park adjacent to the museum, a man walked up to Perrie (who was off a short distance from the rest of us), and said "Your daddy Obama". I walked up just in time to hear this exchange. Perrie looked confused, and the man repeated louder "Your daddy Obama". Perrie and I looked at each other and smiled, then told the man "no". He repeated more insistently "Your Daddy Obama!". At this point Paul walked up and so I pointed to him and said This is Daddy....this is baba, I am mama". The man didn't miss a beat...."Oh", he said, "Your UNCLE Obama".

The mist generated by these fountains helped cool us off in the extreme heat of ShangHai that day.

Girls In a Museum Who Would Rather Be Shopping

This is what teenage girls look like when they are forced to smile for the camera right after they have asked yet again "How long before we go shopping". From left:
Perrie (16), Hannah (14), Madeline (14), Caitlin (17 but almost 18 as she reminded everyone).

The Furniture that our Kids Did not Care About

The square table and stools in the upper left corner are from the Qing Dynasty. I think the bed (right corner) is also from that dynasty. The bed would be hung with warm quilts in winter and a light silk curtain would be used in summer to keep away mosquitoes. Despite the lack of interest on the part of the kids, I was interested in Laura's presentation.

Picture of ShangHai Museum

This is the ShangHai Museum, which combines a very modern building with an interior holding Chinese antiquities.

An Awesome Day in ShangHai, June 18, 2009

Caitlin, Madeline, Perrie, and Hannah in front of the ShangHai Museum

Good Morning! Here in ShangHai it is 6:15 a.m. on the morning of June 19. Back in Arizona it is 3:15 p.m. on the afternoon of June 18 (at least I think it is).
Yesterday was such a wonderful day that I want to comment on it before it fades into memory (my memory is not what it used to be). I woke up on June 18th at 3:30 and spent some time on the computer here in my room. Then I woke my daughters up by taking a flash picture of them as they lay sleeping in bed with their stuffed animals clutched in their arms. We went down to the breakfast bar as soon as it opened at 6:00 am. The food was so good....we just sat there and pigged out, kept going back for more and more food. There were pastries, eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, croissants, bagels, and then all the traditional cooked to order food with everything from fresh noodle soups to omlettes. Our favorite was the dragon fruit, which seems to be impossible to get in the US....the only times we have been able to enjoy it is on our Asian trips.
At 9:00 we met our guide Laura in the hotel lobby. We changed US dollars into Chinese RMB (also called yuan), for a day of shopping. What a day of shopping!!!! Laura knew exactly the right places to take us.
Our first stop was the ShangHai Museum, filled with artifacts from China's past. When I say "past" I mean items going back into prehistory like 200 BC, all the way up to the present. First, our guide Laura took us through the furniture exhibit, which included both functional and decorative pieces from many dynasties. The kids were UNDERwhelmed. So we split into groups, and Marilyn and I spent most of our time viewing the Chinese paintings and porcelain. We could easily have spent two days at the museum, but only had about one hour there. All four girls spent our time at the ShangHai Museum sitting in the lobby outside of the gift store and listening to their iPods.
Next stop, the pearl store!!!! OH YEAH. First we were given a demonstration of how to find pearls in both fresh water oysters and salt water oysters. It was very informative, especially learning about the different colors and shapes of pearls. Caitlin was not happy that several oysters had to be sacrificed in order to get at the pearls inside of them. We found about a dozen tiny pearls in the one fresh water clam that we opened up, though they were not of jewelry quality and will be used in cosmetics such as pearl cream or facial mask. ore and listening to their iPo
Then we went inside the store. OMG....there were rows and rows of the most gorgeous jewelry I have ever seen. We bought a bracelet for Hannah, a ring for Perrie, and some gifts. I was not going to buy anything, but Paul insisted and he bought me some pearl earrings....the color is amazing. They are kind of deep blue/green. They are sea pearls, which is why the took on the colors of the minerals in the area of the ocean where they grew. My pearls probably came from a 7-8 year old oyster based on their size and quality.
Then we went to a restaurant that was on the second floor of an embroidery store. I cannot adequately describe in words the beauty of the embroidery. I am not talking about clothing...these are framed works of art that look so real they could easily be mistaken for photographs. They are made of silk thread as skillfully embroidered into landscapes, wild animals, people (Lady Di was so real I thought it was her photo), and scenes of daily life. We ended up buying a fairly small framed work depicting a person getting water from the riverbank in ancient China. We negotiated the price down to $160 US dollars. Some of the large wall-sized works of art cost over $30,000 US dollars (these expensive works of art included free shipping to your home address).
More about our afternoon and evening later. Time for breakfast now. Cathy

Yes, there is Starbucks in China!!!!

June 18, 2009 No Pedicure, but WOW!

Hi FROM China:
Well, the night before our trip I decided to save the $20 and NOT have a pedicure. Instead, my daughter Hannah filed my claw-like toenails and painted them hot pink.
When we were checking in for our flight we were offered the option to upgrade to Business Class for $680 per ticket. It's a good thing I saved that $20, cuz we splurged and upgraded to Business Class. The upgrade cost nearly as much as our economy class ticket cost!!!! AND it is only for one leg of the journey....only from San Fran to ShangHai, one-way. But boy oh boy was it worth it.We have never flown Business Class before. Usually we are back in the cattle car portion of the plane, surrounded by people, where getting up to use the restroom means nimbly hopping over at least six people just to reach the aisle. Not so in Business Class. Wow, our chairs reclined so that we could actually sleep in a horizontal position. We had personal TV monitors that popped up from the arm rests. We could choose from about 7 movies and 2 TV stations. For us the best part was the relaxing reclining chairs, complete with built-in massage option.Never before have I actually sleep restfully on a long flight.
Our flight lasted almost 14 hours. When we landed, we were told not to leave our seats because a medical team was coming on board. In walked two individuals wearing "haz-mat suits" like you see in CSI. They even had respirators in use. They came equipped with laser beam heat detectors, which they aimed at each person's forehead. If the laser beam indicated elevated temperature, the next step was an actual thermometer under your tongue. We saw that happen to the man sitting in front of us. as it turned out, there was one man back in the dreaded economy coach section who was sick, and so it took a long time sitting on the runway while authorities decided what to do with him. Ultimately all of us (except the sicko) were allowed to deplane.
Pudong Airport is Asia's newest, most modern airport, and we are told, the largest. It is impressive, and we navigated through it with ease thanks to the intuitive way in which it was laid out. Our guide for the one hour drive through ShangHai to our hotel was Mindy. Her English was excellent, and she was so sweet and full on information about ShangHai.ShangHai is a city of 18.7 million people. Traffic at night (during the "slow" time of day") was comparable to driving on the AZ-101 during rush hour. I would hate to be on that freeway during rush hour here in ShangHai.After we checked into our hotel rooms we met our travel companions, the Cleeff Family from Lake Forest, Illinois. We first met the Cleeffs back in 1996 when we were part of the same adoption group. We adopted our daughter Hannah and they adopted their daughter Madeline. This time it is just Marilyn Cleeff (the mom, my age), Caitlin Cleeff (the daughter age 17), and Madeline (the younger daughter age 14). Their Dad Pete could not come on this trip. It is great for the both Perrie and Hannah to have travel companions their own age, and very similar in temperament. And Marilyn is an awesome travel companion....very sweet and full of enthusiasm.Our hotel is beautiful, and tomorrow at 9:00 we will meet our other guide named Laura, and she has the day all planned out for us. We will be touring ShangHai with her and the Cleeff family. The breakfast bar opens at 6:00 a.,am, and as in most Chinese hotels, the breakfast is included with the room. The Cleeffs told us it is very good, with both Western food and traditional Chinese food. If I know Hannah and Perrie they will start their day with noodles.We are off to a great start.
We will be here at the Holiday Inn Vista shanghai today (it is 4:00 am on June 18th here). On the morning of June 19th we will take another flight, about a 90 minute flight, from ShangHai to NanChang. Once we arrive in NanChang we will meet a new guide who will drive us up to Mt. Lushan, a national park in China. We will spend two days/nights in Mt. Lushan at the GuoMei Hotel, hiking, and enjoying the cool mountains.watch for my next email...Cathy Last=======

SURPRISE! June 18 from China Hotel Room

Well, I had a surprise when we finally got to our hotel room, checked in, and turned on the computer. The surprise was that I cannot access my blog from China. I did a Google search for blogs, and learned that many of the most popular blogs, such as the one I was using (blogspot), are banned. I can find the site, but I cannot access it.So Instead of blogging, I will have to do it old-school, and send out emails that will act as my travel journaL. Please watch for emails that chronical our trip.Thanks, Cathy Last (typing at 3:00 a.m. here in China on June 18th)=============

to pedicure or not to pedicure

My kids want me to get a pedicure before our trip. I am a cheapie and don't want to spend the $20 it would cost. So I am thinking it over. Ill let you know whether I end up spending the money for a pedicure or not.

Yesterday our pastor spoke about being a mission-based church, and how the small decisions we make each day can affect the lives of people living in povety. He spoke specifically about buying a pack of gum for $1.49 when that same $1.49 could feed a child in Africa for an entire day. So I feel as thoughI could use that $20 to do God's work instead of make my flat feet look more presentable.

Anyway, today is it....the last day before we leave. We have lots of things to do...specifically I have to find some sort of adaptor that will allow me to download pictures from my SD camera card into my laptop so I can post them on this blog.....wish me luck, as I am computer-challenged and a total techno-illiterate.

Getting gifts for our Chinese hosts

We will be leaving for China in about one week. So yesterday we went to the Asian market here in Chandler. At the Lee Lee Market we purchased gifts for our hosts in China. We needed a gift for the orphanage director, the vice-director, the foster family, and we bought extras just in case there are more "directors".

We chose boxes of American grown ginseng, as this is highly prized and thought to be the most powerful in the world by Chinese people. The Wisconsin-grown ginseng is not cheap, but it will be valued by our friends. A four ounce box costs between $40 and $50, depending upon the strength of the ginseng. We also purchased a box of Wisconsin-grown ginseng tea, just in case we need an extra gift.

So now we will begin to pack our suitcases, charge our electronics, and pack all our carry one stuff. Please follow along with us on our journey.

first blog

This is my first blog. Not much to say yet. In about a week we will leave for China. The purpose of the trip (and this blog) is to visit the province where our daughter Hannah was born. This blog is to share some of the things we see and do. I hope you will follow along with us as we begin this journey.

Cathy, Paul, Perrie, Hannah