We know its been awhile since our last update but Drew has been keeping us busy full-time!  He was only supposed to have one treatment last week but he had a cold the previous Thursday and wasn't able to get his treatment.  Rather than getting an IV treatment we opted to postpone the Friday treatment to the following Monday in order to get a spinal.  Luckily everything worked out with scheduling and we won't miss out on any treatments or have to stay longer.  On the flip side we had to pump Chinese cough medicine in him all weekend and it is the worst smelling liquid on the planet.  We ended up giving him five 1 ml squirts with potato chips between each squirt and he took it a lot better than I would have!  His cough and runny nose went away on Sunday just before the Anesthesiologist stopped by to check him out and his spinal treatment went fine on Monday.

On Saturday we took Drew to the Hangzhou Safari Park with his buddy Abby (who just left today).  The Hangzhou Safari Park, not to be confused with the Hangzhou Zoo) is unlike any we've ever been to in the US.  It took about an hour to get there from Xiaoshan but it was well worth the drive.  The trip there was very scenic and we even passed by the photo studio where Drew was a baby model the last time he was here!

It has two distinct parts, the safari park and traditional zoo.  You start by driving your vehicle through the safari park and seeing all kinds of animals in larger, more open habitats.  For the most part every animal's habitat was pretty open and about the same as you'd see in zoos back home.  Honestly I could write a whole article about everything the park has to offer but you could read the More Hanzhou article about it and get the same idea.  Once we got tickets at the gate and drove through the chaos they called two lines of cars we were on our way. Within the first 10 minutes of the drive-thru safari we were dodging kangaroos and watching wolves go nuts for people tossing pieces of mean to them. Little did I know this was nowhere near the craziest part of the park...

The hospital we are currently staying in is located in a district about 20 minutes outside of Hangzhou.  I guess you could call Xiaoshan a suburb even though there are about 1.6 million inhabitants.  The city of Hangzhou has somewhere between 7-9 million residents.  Our hospital is called the Zhejiang Xiaoshan hospital and from our understanding it is well known as a "birthing" hospital.  The 20th floor (ours) is for stem cell treatments for foreigners.  There are a bunch of patients here from Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is almost like it's own country in China.  One of the interpreters here told us that citizens of mainland China need a passport to even visit Hong Kong.  There is another floor in this hospital for the mainland Chinese citizens to undergo stem cell treatment as well.

Most patients from the unit are from America, Canada, Australia, Romania, Japan and Italy.  With each of our trips I'd say probably half the unit is American or Canadian.  Each room has one double bed and either a hospital bed or hospital crib depending on the age of the patient.  All of the rooms are private for one family with a private bathroom.  The bathroom has a sink with a small vanity, the john, and a walk in shower...kinda.  There's pretty much just a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor, so everyone wears shoes in the bathroom at all times unless you want your socks soaking wet.  

Every room also has a 25 inch TV with a DVD player.  The unit has a huge DVD collection of movies that just came out in theaters.  They're really cheap and fun to read the subtitles.  Our room always has fresh water from one of those water dispensers you always see in office buildings.  The hot water feature always works, so you can make a cup of tea or instant whatever at the drop of a hat.  There's also air conditioning which is definately a plus!!!  Every room also has at least one tall dresser to stuff your clothes/suitcases in and a couple smaller bedside dressers.  There's a tiny refridgerator in every room like the ones everyone had in college to store their 6 packs.  Don't worry, handsome guy is only allowed space for 2 cans of Reeb.  The rest of the space is used for Drew's various dairy products and my honey aloe tea.  Our unit also has 2 small kitchens to cook in, store extra food, or put food in a big deep freezer.  There's also a community storage area that everyone can leave or take items from.  I (Kristin) usually leap for the gigantic jars of peanut butter and some silver ware, plastic plates, etc.  One kitchen in particular has two giant sinks to wash your dishes in.  This is the first time Handsome Guy has ever begged and pleaded to clean the dishes.  It's a great place to chew the fat with our fellow neighbors here.

Our unit wraps around in a circle with the elevators taking up most of one side, patient rooms taking up two sides, and the therapy rooms taking up the other side.  The nursing station is in the middle with a large room behind it with maybe 5 computers for the doctors/staff to use.  The main therapy room has 3 padded tables that are about 2 feet off the ground.  I'd say they are almost the size of a queen bed.  This is where the business happens.  The patients receive 1 hour sessions 5 days per week by a physical therapist.  There are also two adult sized standers in the same room, so this is definately the place for all of the action during the day.  If the patients need standing time, they receive at least 1/2 hour 5 days per week.  There is also a standing station out at the nursing station that I noticed most of the adult patients flock too. There is pretty much just one strap for support in the back, so you need pretty good posture for this type of standing.

The other therapy room is pretty much just called "the amusement room."  There is a little kid section with toys, one therapy table, a couple of couches, a 42"  flat panel TV and a couple of computers.  There actually wasn't even room for all of the patients this morning.  So this one local mother who brings her 2 year old in for PT every day shared our table with Drew.  We got a couple of cute pictures of the kids listening to Drew's Dora book.  They each got a turn turning the pages.

Tonight we had some time after dinner to take a walk around the hospital.  It was the perfect night.  We walked over to People's Square which is huge.  We got to watch a bunch of little kids roller blade and their crazy instructor practically run them over.  Then we watched these huge kites complete with blinking lights fly in the sky.  Next we watched the teenagers of stake boards with wheels that flashed a bunch of different colors.  Then we observed the Chinese version of the electric slide with probably 40-50 women dancing.  Drew was of course busy flirting with the little girls shaking their bare booties.

Drew had his third stem cell treatment on Monday.  This was his second lumbar puncture which means he had to go downstairs  to the OR again.  The procedure took about 30 minutes and went smoothly.  The third floor waiting area was pretty crowded with about 20-30 people waiting for their loved ones as well.  When Drew was finished he was wheeled out in his crib and it suddenly turned into a madhouse!  Everyone crowded around Drew's crib to catch a peek of the Western baby.  Then he decided to grace everyone with a long yawn and a very loud fart.  The waiting area exploded with exclamations and laughter.  It was pretty funny.

Handsome guy aka "Wentworth" has been working his gift of gab and has the store manager of the local RT Mart hooked.  We had just entered the store and we heard a man yell out "Mike".  Now usually we both ignore it when people call out Mike's name because it's pretty common back home - but not so much here.  We both turned and it was the store manager from last August!  He remembered Mike's name!  The manager's name is Simon and takes annual business trips to the USA to check out different supermarkets.  Simon speaks excellent english and offered to take Mike out for a drink sometime soon.  I am also happy to say he has heard of Wegmans and is interested in checking it out.

He also was able to translate my new favorite food for me.  I am absolutely obsessed with these small clumps of sticky rice balls with red bean paste in the middle.  I also love this dish called Ants on a Tree that I can't even describe.  Wentworth is in love with fish soup which has sliced fish in a spicy broth.  We also love the drinks here.  I had the most perfect watermelon drink ever.  Drew prefers the tubes of drinkable yogurt, stuff-crust pizza, and waffle fries.

The weather continues to be very pleasant in the 70's and we've had a couple of thunder storms.  We also found out that the area we are staying in outside of Hangzhou called Xiao Shan is the 3rd most wealthiest area in China.  I guess this explains why every 4th or 5th car is a Lexus, Audi, BMW or Porsche Cayenne.