On to ChangDe

On our way to ChangDe, JieJie naps in the back seat.

I do my best to stay awake as I chat with Smile Cao, and we catch each other up on 10 years of time since we were together last.

He tells me how adoptions have dropped off recent years, experiencing a real slowdown after 2008.  In 2012, he knows that there were only 144 international adoptions to foreigners in all of Hunan. In 2011, there were only 135.

We discuss Bonnie Ward a lot, and her unbelievable dedication to the children of ChangDe, and how the child trafficking scandal in Hunan rocked the politics of many of the orphanages in Hunan, and caused changes in staff, including prison sentences.

Along the road, we see a truck carrying pigs, and they all look like they are well aware of their fate.

Finally by late afternoon we arrive to our hotel in ChangDe.  Smile shows me the department store where he went out and personally bought all the donations for the orphanage.  I wasn't aware that he did this on his own - a washing machine, a dryer, clothes and shoes.

So far JieJie has really only been to one city outside of "New China" (what I call the modern cities of Beijing and Shanghai, which bear little resemblance to the other cities in the interior of the country).  I am comforted to see the cityscape of ChangDe, which has yet to be completely struck by the massive overhaul caused by cranes and crews of workmen slinging concrete.  However, there are still derricks everywhere on the skyline, with new skyscrapers going up constantly.

Our hotel is "normal", which is to say, not the 5 star luxury that is so commonplace in Shanghai for foreigners.  However, we do receive a bit of a scare when we enter our room initially, and we find it a bit run down.  However, Smile comes to the rescue, and we are moved to a new room, which has been recently renovated.

After settling in, we journey out for a meal.  We end up going to a local street restaurant, which serves local style noodles.  In retrospect, this would turn out to be one of the best eating experiences of the trip.  We were totally filled up with food, and for 3 people only cost $12 USD.  It would have easily cost 4 times that in our neighborhood in the USA, and the quality would not nearly be as good.

On our way home, we find our favorite fruit in China - Mangosteens and Pomello.  However, we were to find out that there are about 5 different varieties of Pomellos, and it would take 3 trips to the grocery store before we bought our favorite kind.

After paying for the palmello by weight, the shop owner cuts up the fruit.

here is an advertisement for a HotPot restaurant (a special cuisine in China, akin to our "fondue style" restaurants in the USA).  Note however that the M in "Moguofang" looks suspiciously familiar to another logo.

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Night time views of a chilly ChangDe