Ending One Chapter, Beginning Another

As quickly as we had made friends with the other families from Bethany, we have switched back to being our own again. This morning we flew from Beijing to ShenYang. We hadn't been past airport security long before I looked at Kim and said "I miss Joy." Kim missed her too! She was such a good guide. But Joy has now been replaced by our newest hero-of-the-moment, Maggie. She immediately won points with us by explaining that we had recovered from jet lag so quickly "because you are so young!" (Anyone who has just turned forty likes to hear that!)

ShenYang is noticeably colder. My jacket and hat feel good. Once we got into our hotel room, we started to discuss details about our meeting with Jonathan tomorrow. I won't get into too much detail here ... but there was a slight change in plans. We will meet Jonathan tomorrow as scheduled, but we won't travel to Dalian city until Wednesday. We'll return to ShenYang on Thursday and then we'll be back on schedule to travel to GuangZhou on Friday. It's all good, no worries. We lose a day of sightseeing (Thursday) but we gain a 24 hour period in which to get to know Jonathan before we get on a long bus trip with him. This suits us just fine! Don't get me wrong, I am sure that the Forbidden City in ShenYang is impressive (yes, it is different from the Forbidden City in Beijing) but having Jonathan with us is the whole reason we are here!

After we got some related details straightened out (thank you, Maggie!) Kim and I were free to spend the afternoon together in ShenYang. This was great. Kim and I both agreed that this was the most fun we had so far on the trip. The tourist attractions have been great, but this was just the two of us exploring and running a little errand in this busy city.

We ate lunch at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (managing to order without the aid of an interpreter, thank you) and walked I-don't-know-how-many blocks in search of a Walmart.

Side note about food: we have not been sticking to a strictly American diet here ... we have just had limited opportunities to stop and eat! And KFC was, well, THERE and familiar and we were hungry! Our breakfasts have been unusual, consisting of things like bean curd, fried noodles, and rice. Yesterday we had great lunch with other the other families. It was a variety of Chinese dishes served family style. It was different and fun.

OK ... back to our Walmart trip. Our purpose was to go buy a piece of luggage for Jonathan, but the excitement was in getting there. When walking on a ShenYang sidewalk, you must watch out for bikes, mopeds, and even cars! Crossing the street is especially perilous, and I was certain that I was going to see two pedestrians crushed as they walked between two buses.

The Walmart was unlike one you have ever seen. It was three stories tall. The ground floor was a cross between a grocery store and a farmers market. In the upper stories we found a bag for Jonathan, and also a variety of books and DVDs that he will enjoy (it's hard to find these mandarin language materials in the U.S.A., you know?)

Now we are back in our room and Kim is seriously nesting ... getting ready for Jonathan to arrive. I'm excited too. I know that he will likely have difficulty adjusting to these strange new people who call themselves Ma ma and Ba ba. But we are eager for a new chapter to begin in this story of ours. The chapter where we finally meet.