Leaving Lanzhou

We leave early tomorrow for Guangzhou, and I'm high on cold meds, so just a quick (likely incoherent) post with pictures tonight.

Today was another great day of progress.  Tallulah had more smiles than tears.  Her crazy sisters start their morning entertainment session for her at breakfast, and it sets the mood for the whole day.  She is completely in love with all of them.

 

I'm cautiously optimistic that we've turned the corner with her, though it seems impossible for it to have happened so fast.  We went to Water Wheel Park today on the Yellow River, full of...water wheels.  They use them to irrigate farmland in the summer time.  It was a nice walk alongside the river.

                                    

 

Some weird guy keeps photobombing all our pictures (see right side).  We plan to alert authorities if it happens again.

 

The Yellow River, which appears in need of renaming

 

With "Sally", whom we adore

 

After the Water Wheel Park, we went to a little flea market full of lots of cool local trinkets.

 

 

I love the red lanterns hung everywhere

 

I could watch this guy write calligraphy for hours.  He gave Gianna's hair a "thumbs up".

 

Ok, I need to write about the food here so I never forget.  It's freaking delicious.  Everything is very fresh, with tons of fresh herbs and spices.  I didn't do a lot of eating out on Evie's adoption trip because I was afraid of getting sick since I was the only adult here.  But since we've got four adults this time, I'm trying everything in sight!  Sally has taken us to a few places to eat showcasing local foods and every single thing has been delicious.  A crowd favorite so far has been one of Lanzhou's local specialties: Beef Noodle Soup.  Sounds about as boring as a peanut butter sandwich, right?  But it's SOOOOO good.  Sally told us it's the local specialty because it combines the 3 local cultures in one bowl: Tibetan yak meat, Chinese wheat, and Muslim recipe for noodles.  It's made to order with fresh, hand-stretched noodles, then you add vinegar and a chili oil that also has other herbs and spices in it.  Nathan, the girls and I have had it everyday for breakfast.  When I have to go home and eat cereal for breakfast, I may lose the will to live. 

 

 

 

Lanzhou's cuisine gets five stars from me.  I will seriously miss it and wish I'd taken more photos of local vendors with their food.  However, their accomodations leave something(s) to be desired.  I already detailed the smell of the shower water.  The beds here are also something I won't be sad to leave behind.  We all think the "mattresses" are actually made of plywood with only this 1/4" thick pad on the top.

 

 

The other day, we were sitting in the room watching the cranes outside across the street construct a new high rise.  One of them was lowering a large square item.  Melonie (one of our travel partners) asked innocently (and perhaps deliriously after several nights of no sleep), "Hey, is that a mattress?"  My aunt said, "WHAT?!  A mattress?!  Where?!?", as we started looking out the window to see it.  We all busted up laughing, realizing that it could only be a mirage, much like an oasis in a desert.  Surely, no mattress could actually exist in this city because if one did, I would have sniffed it out and paid any amount of money for it by now.

 

Alright, one funny then I'm off to bed to have nightmares about our flights during what little dozing time my slab of plywood actually affords me.  Tonight, Camille was in the shower talking to herself and said, "I am washing my arms, my belly, (etc etc) because I want to be all fresh and clean for the airport.  I'm about sick of all these people here touching me and I need to wash their germs off."  We didn't have the heart to tell her that Guangzhou has 10 times the population of Lanzhou, so she's about to get 10 times more people wanting to caress her hair and face and hold her hands.

 

The last night in the province is always bittersweet for me.  It's one more step closer to home and to getting on with living our lives together as a family of six.  But it's also very sad to be leaving the place and people our daughter came from, not knowing if and when we'll ever be back. 

 

Goodbye Lanzhou and Gansu Province.  Despite being so large and populated, you have an amazing sense of community and togetherness that I'll always remember.  Thank you for sharing your city, your people, and your Beef Noodle Soup with us.  We are so grateful and humbled to be taking the absolute best part home forever.