The First Four Days

Enough sleep does wonders for a trip.  Between handling our sleep on the plane better and Titus doing so well at night, it's been a lot more fun this trip.  So much fun that I'm pretty far behind on our days.

Day 1, Dec. 23

We landed in Shanghai about an hour late, but we made it to our connecting flight with just enough time to spare.  Our guide got us checked into the Shangri-La and we headed to bed.

Day 2, Dec 24

Las time we took a few days to acclimate before we met Liz.  This time, some of the offices are closed on Jan 1, so we had to change our itinerary.  Although it made our trip two days longer, the upside is that we got Titus three days early, and before Christmas!  God blessed us both with a good nights sleep, and at 10:30, we met Titus.  He seemed very chill and smiled for us right away.  The director brought him to the hotel, so she wasn't able to answer a lot of questions.  We went back up to the room to complete paperwork, and then the guide offered to go purchase water and formula while we fed him.  The one note on the orphanage paperwork said "good sleeper" and boy, were they right.  He went right to sleep after eating and slept until we had to go for more paperwork.  A whirlwind of offices later, we were officially parents of one adorable, happy little boy.

First time in my arms!

Katie picked out some toys for Titus--the ball was a big hit.  

Big smile for Daddy

Day 3, Dec. 25

Merry Christmas!  We spent the morning at Teng Wan pavilion, a famous landmark in Jiangxi province. They had a lot of beautiful porcelain paintings, and our guide shared a lot of the history and culture about the pavilion.  We stopped by a restaurant that served braised meat and enjoyed our first dumplings of the trip.  We headed back to the room for nap time and ended up just ordering room service for dinner.  The noodles were recommended by another family who had been to nanchang, and we ended up ordering them a few times during our visit.

The smog was not too bad, but on cloudy days you could hardly see across the river.

 Nanchang is known for its porcelain--here is a painting done on porcelain tiles.

Outside the Teng Wan Pavilion

Day 4, Dec 26

Our guide took us to a beautiful park in the morning...I could definitely get used to the kind of parks they have here.  Even in December there was a lot of greenery and even flowers.  We were also able to stop by a shop that sold porcelain and chose some tea cups for the kids.  Sadly, by this point David and I both had raging colds.  We had a quiet afternoon while Titus napped, then tried to walk around the area a little bit.  I was pretty wiped out, though, so we headed back and just ate at the hotel restaurant.