Ni Hao from China!

It's Nikki, we just got back from the Stone Forest, and Wei's (Spelling?) Pizza. It tasted sooo good to have some semi-American food for dinner. The pizza was good, but it was still lacking...something. It was the best food we've had in Kunming so far, though, and definitely the best French Fries. It's crazy how such a simple food can taste so horrible in different places.

Before I go on about today, we never got a post out for yesterday. As most of you know, my mom and I went to the Sebastian's Orphanage for a tour. I was so excited to go, and see where my brother has been living for the first six years of his life. When we got there, we were allowed to film and take pictures of the outside of the buildings, but nothing inside. I recognized the walkway where some of An Ming's pictures were taken, which was sort of bitter-sweet. It was kind of cool to walk where he might have walked when he was little, but then again, I thought about how I was walking with my mom, and Sebastian would have been walking with a nanny, and not a mom.

When we were getting the tour, someone mentioned An Ming's name, and a woman working looked up, and pointed to a room with a few bed's in it. Actually, you can barely call them beds. They were like toddler beds, but a little bit shorter then a loveseat. They were TINY. I don't know how little Sebastian could have slept in that. He's small, but not that small. Anyway, she pointed to a specific bed, and said, "An Ming". It was his bed. We waited until the guide wasn't in the room, and then my mom snuck a few pictures. I know we weren't supposed to...but it was his bed, his room. And besides, rules are meant to be broken right? (Just Kidding)

As we continued, we saw where he had had his classes, but we couldn't go into that room, because there were children in it learning. They looked about his age, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were his classmates. When we started to leave those doors, a nanny and a young girl came up to us from the other end of the hallway. I forgot how it all happened, but someone said An Ming again, and the little girl looked up, and said something. As it turned out, she was one of An Ming's friends. we told her that my mom was An Ming's mama, and that I was his sister. She acted excited, and kept hugging us, but you could tell she was sad. When we asked her name, we got a flat out "no." the guide and workers wouldn't tell us her name. I wish they would have, though. She was the cutest thing ever...next to An Ming of course.

The rest of the Orphanage was okay. I found it hard to believe that kids can have alot of fun in a room that's so sterile you feel bad about walking in it. It was just too clean. I know from experience that having just one toddler can destroy a house in a day or two, so shouldn't more of them create chaos? Maybe they just have an amazing cleaning team...


Moving on to today....

As I said before, we went to the Stone Forest. For those of you who don't know, or who have heard about it, but don't actually know how rocks can make up a forest, here's what it is: (I was once one of you) it's an area in Yunnan that was once completely underwater...keep in mind, this was 2 million years ago. As the earth changed, the water levels lowered and lowered, and created different levels of rocks. They end up looking roughly like a forest, with most of them standing strait up everywhere. What's really amazing are the horizontal lines going across multiple formations. They go strait across, and you can tell where the water was for a while. It's pretty creepy to think that where you're standing was once underwater.

As for An Ming, he's doing great. He smiles alot, and I'm teaching him some words in English. Most of which he only remembers for a bit, enough time to tell mama and baba and then moves on to something new. That smile can make you melt. He even does this thing where, if I say "big smile" he makes two peace signs with his hands, and gives me the brightest smile that, besides Annie, I've ever seen. There are times, though, usually when we're driving somewhere, when he'll look at us, or put his head on the seat in front of him, and even the things that always make him laugh, won't work. I know he still doesn't quite trust us all the way, and that he's still wary about his new family, but it's still so heart-breaking.

Wow, this is a long post. Last paragraph, I swear. I don't want you falling asleep at the computer. I like this trip, and it's cool seeing new things and meeting new people, but I'm tired, and I miss everyone back home. Actually, I was listening to my iPod today, and I started paying attention to the lyrics of this one Fall Out Boy song, Homesick At Spacecamp, and I realize how much the lyrics apply to how I'm feeling right now.
"My smile's an open wound without you
And my hands are tied to pages
Inked to bring you back
Tonight the headphones will deliver you the words that I can't say
(Tonight I'm writing you) A million miles away
Tonight is all about:
We miss you."

Yes, I know it's Fall Out Boy, and that they don't mean much to many people, but this song is really fitting right now. It could be like my China theme song...
I miss all you back home! Enjoy the pictures, more soon!
~Nikki