Orphanage Visit - Zoo visit

Hello all, Yesterday we went to visit the Hefei orphanage and the Wild animal zoo. It was very sad to see so many children without a home. I must say that the orphanage was much better than I expected. I really didn't know what to think but it was great to see that the nannys really cared for the children. One of the families we are traveling with, their daughter was from this orphanage and they got to see the facility as well as meet the foster Mom who had been taking care of their daughter. They got to ask her questions and see where she has lived and meet their daughter's foster brother. It was so sweet to see her foster brother hug her and take care of her. He got her a seat and sat with her and just held her for at least 10 minutes. They said he was deaf and could not speak, but you would have never known and I must say he was very protective of his little sis.

After the emotional visit we went to the zoo where we saw several wild animals that you could actually touch and feed. Not like our zoos back home. Dominic my brave son got on a camel, a real hairy hump back camel, he also let the peacock feed from his hand. We saw lions, tigers wolves, bears, a giant panda and a multitude of other animals. You could walk up to deer and ostrich could reach you if you weren't careful.

On a previous post we mentioned we probably would not go to Amelia's orphange, over the last few days she has bonded with Mommy especially and since we visited the Hefei orphanage we thought we did not want to miss this opportunity while being so close.

So, today we traveled to see the orphanage in Anqing city where Amelia is from. It took about two hours to get there and we got to see the country side on the way. I really like the area where she is from. There were many mountains we passed to enter the city. Reminded me of West Virginia where my Mom is from. Lots of trees!

The orphanage was much different from the one in Hefei. It was much smaller and also housed elderly folks in part of it. There was no foster care on the premises but they used foster care in the way we would back in the US. We got to see Amelia's nanny and other caretakers. They really love her and had so much fun seeing her. She understands alot more Chinese than I ever will. They told us that Amelia (Huanqing) was the oldest and took great care of the other children. if they fell she would pick them up, she shared everything with the others and is very generous, we have experienced this with her already. She shares everything and is very helpful. She is also very attached to Mommy at this point. Although Amelia was very happy to see her friends and nanny, she was very happy to leave with her Mommy! We got to see another child whose parents will be traveling to China later this month to bring her home. We took lots of pictures.

That's it for now...off to Guangzhou where its almost 80 degrees, although we are happy to be closer to coming home and seeing our wonderful children Hunter, Gabrielle and Hope, it is sad to leave where she is from, hard to explain.