Where in the world is Shenyang City?

Okay, so now that I can officially share information, I wanted to show where our daughter is currently living in China. Here is a map of her city (Shenyang City) and province (Liaoning).


If you look closely, you can see that to the east of Liaoning is North Korea. To the west of Liaoning is Beijing. Shenyang is the capital city of Liaoning province. Liaoning is located way into northern China. The climate there gets pretty cold in the winter, which may well be when we travel. It will be interesting seeing northern China and the Great Wall since during our trip to meet Maimie, we only visited the southern Chinese provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong.

After visiting a handful of websites, I've found out a few things about Shenyang City:

Shenyang means "city to the north of Shen River".  The Hun River on the city's south side used to be called the Shen River. Shenyang was first established around 300 B.C. and currently has a population of 7.2 million.  

It is the largest city in northeastern China by population and contains 38 of China's 56 ethnic groups, including the Han Chinese majority which makes up over 90% of Shenyang's population. 

According to one site:

Shenyang is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and has many cultural relics which symbolize the prosperity and subsequent decline of China's last feudal dynasty... The most famous of these is the Shenyang Imperial Palace, which is of great historic and artistic significance and second only to the Forbidden City in Beijing in the extent of its preservation.

One other interesting thing I found is that this area is renowned for its dumplings ("jiaozi"), one of our faves. 

Here is a photo of the front of the Shenyang Children's Welfare Institute:

This particular welfare institute seems to be a somewhat large newer facility built in the 1970s.  It is staffed with doctors, nurses, teachers, therapists, and personal care staff.  It also has had a "Half the Sky" program in place since 2008.  We don't, however, know if Shen Jia Wen has participated in this program.