Last Day in Zhengzhou

No real agenda today except to collect Valerie's passport from the agency reps who picked it up from the passport office this afternoon. Crazy thing - there are 100 million people living in the province of Henan, and the passport office, which serves the entire province, was able to get ours back to us in two days.  Impressive!  Valerie will use her Chinese passport one time - to enter the US. At that point she'll immediately become a US citizen and will need a US passport to travel abroad.

We took Valerie back to the park that we went to the other day.  It was an adventure trying to figure out how to purchase subway tickets from the automatic kiosk without the help of our agency rep.  But we did it!  The park was lovely and we enjoyed a bit of a cooler day.

We walked back to our hotel, maybe about a half of a mile or so.  That was another adventure!  What looks like a sidewalk is really where the scooters can ride.  And you have to make sure you stay out of their way.  It's a little crazy.  I'll include a picture.  Also, I'm not sure what the laws are here but it appears that the larger vehicle gets the right of way - scooters yield to cars, cars yield to buses, pedestrians yield to everybody.  It's nuts.  I'll also include a picture of the intersection that we have to cross to get to the store.  When the green walk symbol is lit, you can walk but you better watch out! Cars turning have the right of way and the scooters are going every which way!

Valerie had a nice easy day. Lots of calm time playing in the room with us.  That seems to be the place where she's most comfortable for now.  Sleep is mostly good - keep praying!  She called me mama today.  Love it! She warmed up to me at first but took until today to be comfortable letting Todd hold her more.  She's such a little darling.  She likes getting kisses from me and has even given a few back.  She has times when she gets overwhelmed  - she stares off into space or gets really sad and starts to cry.  If I hold out my arms she'll usually run to me and let me comfort her.

Lotus flowers in the background