What day is it?

Greetings from Nanchang, in the province of Jiangxi. It's official, I have a happy baby. She has just been great. Thank goodness, as it makes the trip a whole lot easier. We are all finished with the paperwork for the adoption. We signed the official paperwork. No refund, no return : ) Same for her - She signed with a footprint - seen in the attached picture. The next few days are literally hanging around waiting for her Chinese passport. It takes months to get one regularly for people, so we'll hang in for 5 days and play with Lily. She's really amazing. She liked swimming in the chilly indoor pool here at the hotel and a enjoys a bath too. We went straight from one to the other to test that theory. She's going solo now. What a
Seems like we've always had her. I can't wait for her to meet everyone at home.

The picture on the phone is our call to Grandma and Grandpa.

All has been going really well. The tour guides are great. They hooked us up with Pizza Hut last night, and walked us to a very good Chinese place tonight. The food has been fine, you just get a little tired of picking through weird stuff to find something you can eat at the buffets.

We went to a grocery / department store yesterday. We were very happy souls to get our hands on soda and pringles. We get lots of attention on the street. People really are very nice, just curious. I wish I knew one word to answer them.
Tomorrow we went to visit an orphanage to see some of Holt's programs in process. Although I'm not thrilled to be in this city for 6 days, it really is fascinating to see bits and pieces of the culture. People here are either rich for poor. Very little middle class. For example, when you go in to ANY store, there are so many people working! How do they pay them all? is what comes to mind. We learned today that a common monthly salary for them would be about 600 RMB per month. That's about $75. We spent 300 RMB on 5 bags of groceries and sundry items at the same store. To us, $38 was a bargain, to them we spent half a months salary on "stuff"! Today we went to a book store. Music CD's cost about $2.20. We didn't find any we were interested in, but we found Elvis, Alicia Keys and Aaron Carter. There was quite a large Yanni section as well.
(Side note - The current American Idol is playing here.)

Okay, she's sleeping, so I need to be too. She's sleeping through the night, but is my little typewriter. I keep placing her on her back on one end of the crib, and she squaks when she hits the slats on the other end. Her feet are going all night. I was up 10+ times last night, moving her to the other end. Very cute - for a day or two : ) But, so happy she's sleeping from 9:00pm to 5:00am, happy to give her a hand. All the babies are doing really well. None of them crawl on their stomachs. Not considered important here. We wonder if it is because of sanitary conditions in villages - wouldn't want your baby crawling on a dirt floor for example. None of them feed themselves either. Maybe the same reason. Just a guess though.

Tomorrow a visit to a beautiful local pagoda (I may include a night shot of it). Just good to get out of the hotel a bit.

Love, Maryellen