Our guide met us in Guangzhou with
perfect English. Little did we know how incredible he was yet! He
was so good, getting us into the van, checked into the hotel, getting
the crib right away, and taking hubby to order sweet and sour pork at
the local restaurant. It was the first of many days we were thankful
for him!
April 18 Saturday
Met our guide at 8:40am to go to the
clinic to check out our little one. They had to confirm that the
special need in her file was true and that she was healthy enough for
adoption. We had no real wait. They weighed her, a doc felt her
belly and looked at her body, checked her file, another squeezed a
squeaky toy on each side of her head to see if she heard it and
looked in her one ear. Done.
Went from there to Shamain Island.
Like many many adoptive families before us, we ate at “Lucy’s”,
because although the hotel buffet at The Garden was AMAZING, hubby
could not handle another day without an American meal of some kind.
After lunch and walking around, we shopped at Jenny’s for squeaky
shoes and Michaels for tee shirts for the boys and some other
souvenirs. The island was the first place we ever saw Iris afraid of
something....bronze statues. She waved and blew kisses at them from
afar, but get her close to one and she'd hang on so hard that I could
have let go and I'm sure she wouldn't have fallen!
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| Famous statue of children on Shamain Island |
April 19 Sunday
We left early again, out to visit the
Chen Academy, a treasure of Chinese folk art contained within stone
hallways and courtyards.
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| At Chen Academy |
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| Embroidery |
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| Cloisonne Vase |
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| Bone Carving |
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| Front door to the academy |
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| Entrance to Chen Academy |
Afterward, our guide offered to take us to
see the Buddhist temple nearby. None of us were award that it was
the first day of a lunar month, so the temple was CROWDED, as were
the streets leading up to it. There were carts of fruits, stands of
incense, and drums of fire where you could burn offerings to your
ancestors. It was crowded and hot, and beautiful and interesting!
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| Incense shop |
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| Burning incense on the street |
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| Burning offerings to ancestors |
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| Streets crowded with vendors like this |
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| At the temple |
April 20 Monday
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| In front of the passport picture and clinic building |
Our appointment at the US Consulate was
at 8:30am. We left the hotel at 7:40 and went to pick up Iris's
passport photo. We had to walk from the clinic/passport photo
building to the consulate, which isn't far. There were crowds and
crowds of people waiting outside already. Our guide explained that
because we were citizens with an appointment, we were to go in a
different way. So, we went straight through the line to a very short
line. Inside, we followed the signs to the adoption processing area,
where we had no wait. We were first in line! Our guide said it was
the only place in GZ you could drink the water. We didn’t try that
but did use the bathrooms.
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| Consulate Appointment |
From our appointment, we went to the
park near the Guangdong Museum and Guangzhou library. The gardens
and flowers were beautiful but the heat and humidity settled on us
like a blanket and it was only April! We went into the library and
changed a diaper between the stacks there because the lady in the
bathroom told me I should just lay her on the wet floor. Um. No.
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| Library |
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| Park dedicated to firefighters |
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| Incredible trees |
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| In front of Pearl Tower |
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| Love the flowers! |
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| Opera House |
After a nap back at the hotel, we went
out to dinner at a traditional Cantonese dim sum restaurant with our
guide. He insisted that we try chicken feet—which, to his credit,
DID just taste like noodles, but I'm not going to make them a regular
item to order! As we finished dinner, it decided to pour rain, which
we ended up running through while I tried not to think of what was
washing over my feet from the city streets in those puddles!
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| Chicken Feet |
April 21 Tuesday
It was much cooler after yesterday's
rain. We headed back out to go through the Guangdong Museum and walk
the park again. The museum was fascinating, showing everything from
the natural history of the area, to the folk art history, to the
history of America's first Chinatowns! We were stopped in the museum
by a group of young women from a fashion institute who wanted our
photos and to ask what we bought in the city. Who knows where our
sweaty American faces are now plastered!
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| Guangdong Museum |
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| Example of a dragon boat |
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| Awesome suspended ocean in natural history area |
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| Daddy and the dinosaurs |
In the afternoon, we explored the hotel
with Iris….there is a beautiful garden with a waterfall and
multiple koi ponds, an incredible pool that it was now too cold to go
in, and a playground for slightly older children.
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| Why our hotel is called "The Garden" |
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| Beautiful Lobby |
In the evening, we took our most
enjoyable adventure...a dragon boat cruise on the Pearl River after
dumpling dinner with our guide. Many of the buildings and boats were
lit up, and the boat turned around right in front of the Pearl Tower.
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| Our chariot awaits |
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| The Dragon Boat |
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| Another boat on the Pearl River |
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| Pearl Tower at night |
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| Beautiful music played on the boat |
And that porcelain that was supposed to make it to Guangzhou by Sunday finally showed up! Good thing because before turning in, we packed for Hong Kong!
April 22 Wednesday
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We left for our final train at 10:30am.
Our sweet guide stayed with us right until we went into the ticketed
boarding area. It was an uneventful ride to Hong Kong, where were
had to follow the signs for taxis across the water after finding a
bathroom and changing some of our money into Hong Kong dollars. The
taxi was tiny—they bungee corded the trunk closed with our luggage
inside, which seemed to be a common thing to do! The ride to the
hotel was about 45 minutes and we were DONE. Done with planes and
trains and cars, so we ate at the world's most expensive hotel
restaurant, where our daughter had an explosive diaper and we left a
$1.60 tip. Yup. We were over it. Ready to go home and see our boys
and sleep in our OWN bed!
April 23 Thursday
The Hong Kong aiport is NOT easy to
navigate. There is a board that tells you which aisle to go to for
your airline, but no signs at the end of the aisles to tell which
airlines are down that row. We did find Delta, and it took over an
hour to get us checked in at the airport again.
The awesome thing is, after all of the
getting there and checking in and finding COFFEE, etc, etc, our
daughter was dynamite. She loves being held. She smiles at people.
She goes with the flow. She was a CHAMP on our 12.5 hour flight, and
slept through much of the 4 hour flight afterward. We had friends
meet us in Seattle to welcome our newest citizen, and our sweet
family and a few friends at the airport at home. I can't tell you
the feeling that comes over you when you see your little boys' faces
smiling and waving and jumping up and down waiting for that hug that
they've been holding out for for 2 weeks!
.JPG)
We left for our final train at 10:30am.
Our sweet guide stayed with us right until we went into the ticketed
boarding area. It was an uneventful ride to Hong Kong, where were
had to follow the signs for taxis across the water after finding a
bathroom and changing some of our money into Hong Kong dollars. The
taxi was tiny—they bungee corded the trunk closed with our luggage
inside, which seemed to be a common thing to do! The ride to the
hotel was about 45 minutes and we were DONE. Done with planes and
trains and cars, so we ate at the world's most expensive hotel
restaurant, where our daughter had an explosive diaper and we left a
$1.60 tip. Yup. We were over it. Ready to go home and see our boys
and sleep in our OWN bed!
The awesome thing is, after all of the
getting there and checking in and finding COFFEE, etc, etc, our
daughter was dynamite. She loves being held. She smiles at people.
She goes with the flow. She was a CHAMP on our 12.5 hour flight, and
slept through much of the 4 hour flight afterward. We had friends
meet us in Seattle to welcome our newest citizen, and our sweet
family and a few friends at the airport at home. I can't tell you
the feeling that comes over you when you see your little boys' faces
smiling and waving and jumping up and down waiting for that hug that
they've been holding out for for 2 weeks!
