WUHAN

This morning we flew to Wuhan, which is in the province of Hubei. The population of Wuhan is 8.3 million, the same size as New York City. We learned today that only 10% of the people in Wuhan own a car, which means that traffic is not too terrible. We arrived at our hotel to find the crib already set up and waiting for Hope. What a surreal feeling. We did a little shopping and then headed out to dinner with my parents. We are the only people from our travel group who flew to Hubei province, so we are on our own now. The guide from our adoption agency recommended three restaurants for us to try. We picked one of the restaurants and when we entered, it was clear that no one spoke English. They finally located a server who spoke minimal English. When we ordered one of our dishes, he looked at us as if to say, "I'm not so sure you're going to like it." What he actually said was, "Hmmm.... sweet." When we received the dish and started eating it, we realized that what he meant to say was,"Spicy." We left the restaurant with our tongues on fire. After dinner, we walked to the park that is next to our hotel. It is not like the parks we have back home. It's a large cement area. There were tons of big wheels for kids to ride around on. I could picture our kids having a ball there.

Back in 1999 I spent 5 months as an English teacher in China. I became accustomed to being stared at, as most Chinese people are not used to seeing foreigners. However, this time around, no one is staring at me or my parents. All of the attention is paid to Mike. I'm guessing the fact that he's 6' 5" has something to do with it. When our guide met us at the airport today, she asked him if he was a basketball player. When he said, "No", she told him that he had the body of an NBA player. I think that made his day.

Tomorrow is the big day. At 9am, we will meet our guide and she will take us to a government building to get Hope. We should be meeting her at 10am, which is 10pm on Sunday night for those of you in the Eastern Time Zone. If you think of it, please pray for us during that time. We know that Hope is going to be scared and the transition could be quite difficult. I think it's safe to say that she is not as excited to meet us as we are to meet her.

Thanks for all of your support. We can't believe that our long wait is finally coming to an end! My dad is all set to take pictures and my mom will have the camcorder in hand to capture the big moment. That way we can enjoy meeting Hope without having to worry about documenting the moment. In case you have never had a chance to see my dad's beautiful photography, you should check out his website at: www.scriptureexpressions.com

I can't wait for tomorrow's post when I can actually post pictures of our daughter!!!!