Last Day in Shanghai

We have spent 3 days in Shanghai. Today is our last day and we head to Jinan tomorrow. We are going by high speed train and still it will take us about 4 hours to get there. China is HUGE!!!

Yesterday, we spent the morning looking for a bank to exchange some money and checking out the area around our hotel. In the afternoon we met our guide, Summer, and went to a digit market to get me a camera. We met with great success and turned our sights to an electronic translator. We didn't find what we were looking for so we will keep looking. We decided to take in an acrobat show. The kids were exhausted(we all were) and fell asleep during the first 1/2 so we left at intermission. We had not previously scheduled our driver and Summer to be with us, so we took cabs and I had visions of the headline "American dies in Chinese Traffic." The concept of red lights, walk signs, lanes or signaling a lane change is completely foreign to the Chinese. And the horns . . . Kevin says if he was a government official here he would make it his mission to outlaw horns. I think I agree. Our new friend Sun Chuan, who was going to intern at my office last summer and live with us, came from Nanjing to see us. It was great to meet him in person. He spent several hours with us and we are hoping that perhaps next summer we will see him in the US.

Today we went to Luke's orphanage. There were so many emotions today for me so I can only imagine what Luke is feeling. He is a typical male and isn't saying much. There has been some angry behavior and snuggling late this afternoon and evening. Both of which were totally expected. The woman giving us a tour said there are over 500 children who live at this orphanage. My question was where are they all??? The place was like a morgue. Except for the room where we got to see some "babies", and two older children in the hallway, we did not see any children. We were told they were in other buildings, but it was so silent. We didn't see any signs of children in other buildings and there was no one outside. It's kind of hard to hid 500 kids, but somehow they managed.

We were taken to a room that had about 16 kids in it. They ranged in age from 2-5. We were there right at nap time so we tried to be quiet. The ones that were awake were curious and watched us, but they remained lying down and didn't make a sound. Can you imagine??? 16 children that young being quiet??? It was very difficult . . .some seemed sad or we got blank stares. But some had quite the personality. Like this little girl.
 

And these little guys...

Catherine walked among the cribs, stroking hair and holding hands.

Luke walked around to some of the cribs, and at one point he just sat in a chair and watched. But there was this one little boy that reached out to him and Luke seemed drawn to him as well. Here is a picture of them together.

A caretaker came in and we told her Luke's Chinese name. She said she remembered the name . . .Don't really know whether she truly did or not, but she and the others seemed genuinely happy to see Luke. I asked for a copy of Luke's file. I was told that the lady who prepares the files was not in today. It was Saturday of a holiday week. I was also told that some information in the file cannot be disclosed. I was told that there would be an email coming with information that we perhaps did not have. I won't hold my breath, but am hoping for the best.

I can't believe we got to be there. It was something I will cherish for the rest of my life. I hope that one day Luke will too.