Shanghai Tour Day

Today, I fell in love with my daughters city. It was our day to tour her city. Our first stop was the Bund. This is an area right on the river with beautiful European architecture and large buildings, most of which are now banks on one side, and the above view on the other. Shanghai has the second tallest building in the world, the tallest in China. I could have stood by this view a lot longer, which is saying something considering it was in the 90’s with 90% humidity!

Our guide told us that 20 years ago, this was the countryside, and that none of this existed. As you walk up to this view there is a large statue of a guy who previously was the mayor of Shanghai during the Mao period. He helped Shanghai become the city that it is today.

From their we drove about 15 minutes to a marketplace, which also held the Yu Gardens, the main tourist spot for Shanghai. All of it was incredible architecture, being built in the Ming and Ching dynasties…several hundred years old.

After touring the Yu Gardens, our guide took us to a traditional Dim Sum restaurant in the market area. It was SOOO good! Finally the Chinese food I’ve been wanting to experience!

Above is Chris “eating” the local Shanghai specialty, soup bun. Basically this is a bun filled with soup. It was a lot like chicken noodle soup broth. Turns out most people don’t eat the dumpling part, it’s just a way to make soup more convenient to eat on the go! They sure love their soup…even in the heat!

Most of our spread. We ordered three types of dumplings, crab, veggie, and pork. Not surprisingly, everyones favorite was the pork…it was surprisingly light…way better than the ones we in Beijing. I really liked the veggie too, it was bok choy, bamboo shoots, and a tiny bit of mushroom, but the broth that was in with it was kind of chickeny and gave it such a rich and complex taste. The little pig buns are egg yolk sweet bread that is common for the kids to eat, although neither of our girls had much interest. Naomi didn’t want to eat it because it was too pretty 🙂 We also had a sort of spring roll that was triangle shape that also had fermented tofu in it. Both the girls scarfed that!  Another local Shanghai item is fermented tofu, what our guide called stinky tofu.

The sauce in the table is actually vinegar not soy sauce. It goes great with the dumplings, and the Chinese use it as a staple and sometimes drink it daily as they all keep saying it is very good for your health.

The gardens were absolutely beautiful. It’s incredible the architecture on the buildings (which used to be just one persons home!!!). So much intricacy in each and every aspect. I could have sat in there and taken in the beauty for hours.

It was nice to have more time with our guide, and have her tell us more  about the city, and food and culture. And of course to have help eating! Naomi was so chill, and went with the flow. She only whined at one point, and that was to go back in her stroller, which she apparently really likes! Our plan was to wrap or carry her the majority of the time, but with being outside all day, and walking so far, it just wasn’t feasible. Plus, I think due to her medicine, she sweats a ton!

That has been a fun hurdle while we are here. On gotcha day they gave us three small paper envelopes of medicine. Each one had the medicine, and dosage amounts written on the front and then inside little wax paper bundles. Our pediatric cardiologist had originally said to discontinue all meds, but after talking with the lady from the orphanage, we were a bit nervous to do this. There were definitely some uniquities about her heart rate they were telling us that we didn’t want to play with in country.

Last night we ended up trying to call our dr. How amazing was CHOA, within less than 10 minutes of calling in, they had our cardio on the phone for us to talk to about her and her meds!!! We decided to keep her on them, but the week we get back we will be headed straight into an appointment with him, as well as our regular pediatrician. Both appointments will likely take a couple hours and be intense…so much for acclimating slowly.  But we are so grateful to have the incredible medical team waiting for us that  do!

Another fun thing is that her meds are in actual pill form, so we have to try to crush them up in the hotel room and dissolve them in water. Thankfully she’s awesome at it and doesn’t mind the bitter taste. So tough for someone so little.

Each time I pick her up, or change her diaper or dress her I am shocked a new how tiny and frail she is. She has very little to no muscle tone and can’t really run, even though she wants to. Thankfully I brought a variety of sizes with us too. I put 18-24 month leggings on her today, and while they fit her length wise they just kind of hung on her. They were H&M leggings too, which typically run snug.

She has these moments of being a happy and normal little girl, but then there are moments when you are reminded of her past.

Tomorrow we go to visit her orphanage, and I’m anxious about that. It could be really good for her, or really hard. Or both. I think it will be very hard on me too. When we started this process, this was one of my biggest fears. Walking into her orphanage, and taking her out; but leaving so many behind. How do you reconcile that?! How do you see those faces and not remember them?

Her orphanage doesn’t have the best reputation either, so I’m anxious about things I may see and have to process, both about how she reacts to certain people, or other things I may see.

We would so greatly appreciate your prayers for all of us as we go into tomorrow.

After we visit her orphanage, we will go to where she was found.  Emotions will be running high, and while today was lots of awe, wonder and giggles, I’m expecting a lot more fear and tears tomorrow. While it’s hard, I’m so grateful that we can visit these places and have pieces of her story and history to give her.

We are already talking about returning to her city as a complete family of 6. China and Shanghai will forever be a part of our family.