Random Subjects

Hi, everyone.

It’s been a couple of days since I blogged about our adoption trip. That’s mostly because heat/humidity, jet lag, and a busy schedule make us want to get to bed as soon as we can at night.

So, here are a few random subjects that I’ve been thinking about the last couple of days:

The first night we were here, Jonathan woke up at midnight and didn’t go back to sleep. The second night, Jonathan slept until 3 AM before he woke up and didn’t go back to sleep. He’s finally sleeping through the night. And, so is Jessica. Hopefully, there’s more of that ahead of us.

To the casual observer, the drivers around here might appear to be crazy. But traffic seems to flow. It is not uncommon for a car to force a left hand turn into a driveway across four lanes of oncoming stop and go traffic. This maneuver does not always warrant any honking horns as the two left lanes of oncoming traffic simply steer to their left, behind the car which is now blocking their lanes as it is making its left hand turn. Of course, this means that those two lanes of traffic end up driving on the wrong side. That’s when the horns start honking.

However in actuality, the drivers around here must be some of the safest in the world. So far, I have seen no evidence of accidents. I’ve not noticed a single body repair shop. In fact, I’ve not even seen one bit of body damage on any vehicle! But that fact doesn’t make me run across the street any slower.

The pedestrians seem equally crazy, jay-walking across very busy streets while not even looking at the zigzagging traffic coming at them. I’ve seen some looking at their cell phones as they did. (Maybe they had dialed the “9” and the “1” before taking that first step off the curb.) Actually, the pedestrians here are very skilled at walking the streets of China … at least the remaining ones are.

On Tuesday, we went to Walmart here in Nanchang. This is a city of 4.7 million people and there are only two Walmarts. Good thing we went on a Tuesday. We were told that on some days of the weekend, it is wall to wall people. Maybe they should all it “Wall-to-Wallmart”.

So far, the food’s been good and none of us have gotten sick. We’ve been popping Airbornes everyday to try to head off any colds. I’ve heard that some traveling groups had just about everyone pick up a cold. The babies are especially prone to colds since they are not used to air conditioning. But, so far so good for us.

One of the families we are traveling with has a 5 year old boy. Jonathan and Aaron have a great time hanging out together during some long bus rides and during site-seeing tours that do not appeal to their general age group. Today, it was probably 90 degrees and very humid at the Taoist temple that we visited. It seemed that everyone felt the heat except the two boys who enjoyed running ahead of the group. Of course, they might have been cooled off by their self-manufactured wind chill.

Jonathan has an uncanny ability to determine what Jessica needs. Frequently, when Jessica starts to whimper, Jonathan is quick to provide her with what she needs or tell Mom and Dad what’s causing Jessica to cry. He is usually right on target, except when he tries to comfort her with his new toy monster truck.

Jessica has been a real delight. She likes to be held and is very good natured. It doesn’t take much focused attention to get a smirk to break through her normal quiet Cabbage Patch stare. She hasn’t complained much about the heat, but maybe that’s because she’s not in three layers of clothes anymore, like she was in the orphanage.

I’ll try to post more pictures soon. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Dan