{"id":1587,"date":"2011-03-06T05:09:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T13:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?p=1587"},"modified":"2011-03-06T05:11:36","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T13:11:36","slug":"zhongshan-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?p=1587","title":{"rendered":"Zhongshan visits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 100%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-1587 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?attachment_id=1588'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/2011-Grace-and-Zhongshan-Visit-837-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?attachment_id=1589'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/2011-Grace-and-Zhongshan-Visit-847-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?attachment_id=1590'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/2011-Grace-and-Zhongshan-Visit-849-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Ah, how to sum up today&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Maybe saying we went 3 for 3 as far as the homeland visits went would be best.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yueyang was amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Yinchuan was surprising and yes, amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Zhongshan, well, it definitely was otherworldly in so many ways!<\/p>\n<p>We visited the orphanage for a few hours.\u00a0 We toured the usual places everyone has been in as of lately, but this time with personal stories and lots of children accompanying us (older ones mostly &#8211; I&#8217;ll upload all of the photos including other children to my private photo blog once we are home for all of you who are\u00a0waiting for your kids just in case you see them).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We then went to a local restaurant with Grace&#8217;s closest adult friends\u00a0and the director.\u00a0 Wonderful\u00a0Dim Sum.\u00a0\u00a0Grace&#8217;s volunteer had had his wedding\u00a0party there.\u00a0 Beautiful!<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards Grace, Faith and Garnet got to ride scooters with Grace&#8217;s adult friends over to\u00a0first one volunteer&#8217;s home and then the other!\u00a0 I\u00a0haven&#8217;t ever seen\u00a0them grin so much!\u00a0 Through traffic, over a huge bridge, zipping here and there.\u00a0 We have had an amazing guide and driver here.\u00a0 Our guide is super spunky and our driver purposely drove down the middle of two lanes of traffic at times in order to provide a sort of &#8220;pilot car&#8221; for the scooters carrying our children!\u00a0 Talk about personal service.\u00a0 haha<\/p>\n<p>Just a note about Zhongshan.\u00a0 I knew it was beautiful and full of flowers and palm trees before.\u00a0 But now that I have seen the old town and its side streets and also the modern urban centre with its riverwalk and koi ponds, I&#8217;m very taken with it.\u00a0 It&#8217;s got so much character and beauty.\u00a0 Blue skies and soft breezes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We found out so many personal details about our little girl.\u00a0 We feel as though she is finally ours.\u00a0 And Grace?\u00a0 She&#8217;s now claimed us for sure!\u00a0 We had the opportunity to receive blessings from a number of people who dearly loved her and she was able to finally see with all of us in the same room, that we <em>all<\/em> love her and that the relationships do not have to end.\u00a0 I think we were all (Chinese and Canadian alike) holding our breathe, but it went incredibly well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She (<em>we) <\/em>are all exhausted tonight.\u00a0 And she&#8217;s a bit strung out.\u00a0 Pretty normal considering!\u00a0 It was draining to say the least (a very emotion packed 7.5 hours) and we fully expect lots of ups and downs yet, but the new foudation has been laid.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mission Accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>On to Hong Kong via ferry tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ah, how to sum up today&#8230; Maybe saying we went 3 for 3 as far as the homeland visits went would be best.\u00a0 Yueyang was amazing. Yinchuan was surprising and yes, amazing. Zhongshan, well, it definitely was otherworldly in so many ways! We visited the orphanage for a few hours.\u00a0 We toured the usual places [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,44,19,54,29],"tags":[63,41,58,5,66],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}