the one with the wasting time

so, as with most of the adoption process, there is a lot of waiting.  right now we are waiting.  it seems so frustrating to us that we are not doing anything meaningful today, just waiting on the next step.  tomorrow Sarah's passport will be ready and we can leave for Guangzhou.  but, since it's usually not ready until afternoon, we can't leave until about 5pm.

 Today we did visit a local university which got it's start as an ancient confucious academy.  It is called Yuelu Academy.  There is a lot of history in Hunan.  A village near Changsha is where chairman Mao was born and he spent time in this academy in his early 20's. but, the buildings were under construction and there was not much to see, so we only spent about an hour there.

on the plus side, we woke up to a bit of mist in the air and much cooler temps.  it was still a bit humid but it doesn't feel as bad when it is cooler.

we tried a restaurant in the movie theatre next to our hotel.  our guide had to translate some things on the menu before we went, but it was pretty good, and cheaper then the hotel.  Also, many restaurants here say they are chinese-western and we thought that would mean maybe some one speaks english, maybe there is a bit of american food?? nope...I think it means the decore is modern or something.  I mean, they did have french fries, but our guide had to point it out because the whole thing is in chinese!  but it was a fun experience.  oh and our guide wrote less spicy (in chinese) on the least spicy thing on the menu and she said we still would not be able to handle it...she was right!  Hunan is known for it's spicy food and wow, if this was mild...yikes!  Jordan and brendan and Sarah gobbled it up.  megan and I had rice and broccoli.