Samuel woke up around 6:30 and went into the den, where Cole had been since around 4:15. He didn’t cry this morning, Yeah! Cole’s stomach is upset so he decided to skip the tour of Hunan University, and rest in the room. Sarah Kathryn, Samuel and I went down for breakfast and met the rest of the group to go to the University. The university buildings that we toured had beautiful Chinese architecture, koi ponds, bamboo & trees. The rest of the campus and student living quarters looked very run down, dirty and old. We watched a performance of Chinese music, which was beautiful, and then returned to the bus for the ride back to the hotel. The babies are doing great! They are eating up all the attention. The are not used to being held, but they have quickly adapted and now prefer not to be put down. They are beautiful, and there are many more in need of loving homes (had to put a plug in ).
When we retuned to the room we found Cole sleeping. I took our laundry to our guide’s room and they are going to sent it out to be cleaned. They say it is cheaper than the service the hotel offers. We then all headed to McDonalds for lunch. It seems to be pretty safe. I think the spicy Hunan dishes were too much for Cole to handle. It is HOT here today! We enjoyed our burgers and then headed upstairs to the market to buy some more bottled water and bananas (Samuel loves them). On the way out we got a ice cream cone from McDonalds to help battle the heat on the walk back to the hotel. You can see from the pictures that Samuel enjoyed his.
We are currently in the room and I am about to join Samuel for a nap. He was very tired when we made it back to the room. I held him, rocked and sang one round of “Jesus Loves Me” and he was asleep. He probably was just trying to get me to stop singing ☺
We all ended up taking a nap and slept until almost 6pm. We then went to our guide’s room and picked up Samuels Chinese Passport along with some other important documents. We then decided to eat dinner in the Brazilian restaurant downstairs. The buffet was almost the same as breakfast, but for dinner they were constantly bringing a variety of meats to our table. Some we could identify, but others we could not. We think one man said “camel”, but were still unsure after asking three times. Needless to say, we declined.
After dinner we went and sat on out hotel’s front steps to watch the fireworks. Tonight was opening ceremonies to celebrate National Day, which is tomorrow. When the fireworks ended, there were thousands of people everywhere on the sidewalks and street. Most seemed to be students, still with their class. They all seemed entertained by us and kept smiling and waving “hi” or “hello”. We felt like super stars ☺ We then went to the 27th floor where the hotel has a playroom. Samuel and SK played ball for awhile and got out some energy before heading to the room to get ready for bed. We are counting down the days until we can come home. There’s no place like home…There’s no place like home!