Day 18 -- Changsha, China

I slept horrible last night. The lights and noises from outside kept waking me up. I find that I can sleep pretty much anywhere if I am tired enough, but if I am not completely exhausted, I am a really light sleeper. It’s kind of annoying waking up to the smallest sounds or a light turned on. This is probably why living in a studio apartment didn’t work so well for Daniel and I. My phone also rang at 7:30am. The call wasn’t important, but the person also had no way of knowing I was out of the country. I spent the next two hours trying to fall asleep again but had no luck as the city was waking up and was abound with honking horns and the norm. At breakfast, we saw the other family from the adoption center (turns out they are from Seattle) with their little boy. He was running around, playing with his older brother, giggling, and talking (in Chinese). Apparently he has a heart condition. It was neat to see him adjusting so well to his new family. I imagine Tai will talk more when he gets around his other brothers and sisters and even more when he has his cleft palate repaired. Netta talked to the parents for a bit and decided to go with them to a nearby park to let the boys play. Tai had a good time and ran allover the place. Went back to the room and hand-washed some laundry before heading down to the Coffee Shop in the hotel for lunch. Tai was in a mood and kicked and screamed for a while. We finally got him to eat some food, which contented him for a good half hour. Back to the room again to kill some time. I did some PhotoShop work to tweak some of the photos I’ve taken (I know, I’m a geek) and posted some online. I also helped mom to book our flight to Sanya (on the south side of Hainan Province/Island, south of mainland China). Our tentative plan is to fly to Sanya on the 10th, take the train or bus or something to Haikou on the north side of the island on the 15th, take a train from Haikou to Guangzhou to Hong Kong, stay in Hong Kong for a few days, then fly to Shanghai and head back to Suzhou. None of it is booked aside from getting to Sanya, but we’ll figure that out as we go. After a while we decided to check out the bowling alley in the hotel. Dad and Daniel went down to check it out first and discovered that the elevator wouldn’t stop on that floor. They got off on a different floor and took the stairs only to find that the door was bolted shut and the alley was apparently being renovated. We all met at the ‘Cheers Bar’ in the hotel instead for beer, peanuts, and popcorn. Tai was in a great mood. It was funny to watch him with his food and toys. He would put things in his little plastic bag and pull them out again. He was also quite aware if he dropped anything. It has gotten to the point that when he drops a cracker or peanut on the floor, we just give it back to him because he gets very upset if we just throw it away. He played with his toy cars a lot, mostly balancing them on the lap bar of his stroller. He was very proud when he got the cars to sit just how he wanted them (especially when he got the little one to stand on its end). Dad played with him for a while and showed him different ways to stack or balance them. He paid careful attention and would try to do it himself. Sometime after 10:00pm we went back to our rooms and called it a night.