Day 4... A Recap of Our DAY 3 DRAMA

It's our day off!  Woo hooooooo!  We slept in and it was WON-DER-FUL!  Lily went to bed about 8:30 with nothing to do with it!  She finally fell asleep at 9:30 with only a few breaths between whails!  We are in baby boot camp for sure!  We decided we can bond but also put our foot down of who is boss around here and we took her title away!  She slept soundly until 6:30 or so and got in bed with me and slept til 8:30.  YES!
So, back to yesterday and the DrrrrrAMA!  Here's a play by play...
Up at 4:30am got ready, packed bag with documents and snacks etc; breakfast at 6:30; skyped boys at 7 and took taxi with our agency rep at 7:30 to train station.  Lily does NOT like cars (or at least small taxi's).  There are no carseats here...so it will be VERY interesting putting her in one when we get back!  In fact, she just does not like confined spaces at all and cries.  Hence, the drama begins.  We got there about 8am and found out our train was canceled.  Ugh.  But our rep was quick to get in line and get tix to next train and secure seats.  That train was now 9:45am but was delayed 20 min or so.  But hey, we are OK with that...as long as we keep moving.  Our rep had to sit away from us.  Dale & I had a middle and aisle seat.  Maybe half way through, the man in the window seat left.  And at the next station more people got on train.  Apparently there were 2 people that had that window seat (a mix up) and about 5 people hovered over our seats yelling at each other in Mandarin.  Lily was asleep on Dale's chest somehow sleeping through it.  This went on for quite some time.  The older woman that squeezed into the seat was asked by attendant to leave so when she squeezed out...she bent Lily's leg good and whacked her on the head with her big purse.  It took every ounce of the grace of God to keep us calm.  The Mama bear nearly came out of me.  Lily of course woke up and cried.   I read up a lot on the culture here...and it's just something we had to understand.  Nothing I'll go into now...but it IS a different world here with a lot of wonderful things and a lot of things that are hard to wrap our minds around.
Ok...moving on.  The Bullet train is AWESOME!  It's crazy fast ...we went over 200 MPH and so smooth!  It was NICE too.  Better than airplane!  When we stood by the track some came through super fast not stopping and just the sound of it was sooooo cool!   You can see one in this pic below...

And I loved looking out the window at the countryside.  There are lots of crops and you truly see firsthand how these people live.  It is clusters of housing that is not much.  It certainly is a very simple life with very few cars seen in these outskirts.  This is the living just outside Lily's hometown.

 Below pic is "The Ritz" compared to so much of what we saw.  These pics truly don't do it justice.

We got to Xinyang (pronounced:  She-Young) and took another taxi to the passport office to get Lily's.  We met the lady that delivered Lily to us there.  Our CCAI agent was on the phone trying to keep the passport officer there b/c we were late.  They were telling her that we may have to come back at 2:30 instead.  We came running through and did the passport picture and were led to the front of the line for paperwork.  DONE and DONE in 10 minutes.  It was incredible!  The people in line were very nice about it too.  I felt like we were "cutting in line" and I didn't want to make eye contact.  But mostly they made nice comments and "coo'd" over Lily.  They stared because we look different but in their culture it is OK and do it out of curiosity.  THIS was the easiest part of our day. :))
NOW... comes more drama.
We asked to go to the orphanage and they were very accommodating.  We took another taxi.  Lily cried the whole time.  She kept crying &  pointing at the lady that delivered her to us (I was sitting in middle w/Lily).  It felt like Lily thought she was going back.  I just kept whispering in her ear, "Wah Eye Nee" (I love you).  We got there and we decided I would go into orphanage for 10 minutes and Dale would hold Lily outside with taxi.  As I was getting the suitcase (clothing for orphanage) out of trunk of taxi, I accidentally hit the corner of trunk by tail-light just slightly and took a small chunk of the tail-light out.  Well, here we go again.  Our rep said it was no big deal but we told them we will settle this when I come out of the orphanage.  I went in with our rep and orphanage person.  Here is pic of outside of building.  There are about 100 orphan children here.  It breaks my heart.

The babies and children were sleeping so I was not allowed to go into any rooms or take pics.  When I peaked in a dark room, a Nanny popped up to come out and see us.  The Nannies take naps with them!  Smart.
The reps told them I was Wu Hai Nuo's mommy and to find "Nuo Nuo's" Nanny because I wanted to meet her.  They found her and she came up to me squeezing my hands with big smile talking Mandarin.  Our rep interpreted and said that she was so happy to see me and so happy that Nuo Nuo had pretty young Mama.  THAT made my day ;)  She was thrilled that Lily was going to a good home.  We hugged and squeezed each other several times and clasped hands as the interpretations went back and forth.  She loved Lily.  She said that she loved holding her.  And THAT is an understatement! :)  I don't know how you get spoiled in an orphanage but this Nanny spoiled Lily with all the holding for sure! :)  But I told her that I was so happy to meet her and that from the pictures I had received of Lily, I could tell by looking at the Nanny in those pictures that she loved her and Lily was well taken care of.  She asked if Lily was here.  We told her that she was outside the building with her "Ba Ba" (daddy).  She asked if she could see her from a distance.  I told her that was fine...from a distance.  I didn't want Lily any more stressed out.  Here's a pic of me and Lily's Nanny.  I want to show Lily someday of who cared and loved her ...for her first 20 months.

As we were leaving, we told the Nanny that she could see Lily from the front gate.  She did that for a minute then went running toward Dale holding Lily.  I ran after her worried that she would try to grab Lily and upset her.  But she didn't do that.  She just wanted to touch her and whisper her name.  Lily was awake with her back to her.  But she did not turn toward her.  I hugged the Nanny and told her that we had to go.

So now back to the Taxi drama.  Our rep, orphanage person and guard went back and forth with the taxi driver on the price of fixing tail light.  They said the taxi driver wanted too much.   It must have gone on for 20 minutes.  Dale told our rep..."we don't care, we will pay it, let's go."  But it is a principle thing with them and they wanted to make it right for us so we let them.  We ended up paying her $40.  Then on we went to the train station for our trip back to Zenzhou.  Here are a couple pics of Lily's ex-hometown.  They call it a "small town" of 5 million!  That's a small town here! wow!

And after ALLLLLLL that, this is how we ended our crrrrrrrrAZyyy day on the train.

Signing off.  We wanted to say again how much we appreciate all the help and support at home!  AND a BIG thank you to Tom Huizinga for plowing our driveway!!!  We have such amazing family, friends and neighbors!  And we LOVE reading all the comments.  Thank you!  THAT brightens our days here!  Please keep'm coming :))  Lots of Love, Dale & Nancy