We arrived in Shanghai earlier today after having spent the past two days in Hefei where we visited the Hefei Children's Welfare Institute that Leah is from. It was a wonderful experience...there was some uncertainty around this visit for the past few weeks. The orphanage was in the process of moving to a new location, we've been hearing the move was about to happen for the past year and it was delayed and delayed. Until this week! We ended up being the first visitors to the new location. They moved in two days before we got there. It is really beautiful and huge, 10 times the size of the old location. It just so happened that the Director who ran the place in 1997 and is now retired and running a foundation stopped by to visit and we got to spend some time with her. We had pictures with us of her holding Leah as a baby and she was thrilled. Leah had pics of all the Shen's in her album and she wanted to know each ones name. She commented on how beautiful they all are! She was very excited to see us. After visiting 6 different toddler and preschool rooms we had a dumpling lunch with the former and current director and of course a photo shoot! Hefei has the least western influence of all the places we visited. No internet access and we really stood out and got lots of stares. It was very hot and dirty like our last visit 15 years ago, but the amount of construction that is going on is mind boggling. At 11 million, it is the smallest city we've been to. They have not completely escaped western influence, like every city in China, there are plenty of KFCs, McDonalds and Starbucks. We just returned from a beautiful evening cruise through the city of Shanghai. Wow. One more day here and then we head home...