Days in Guangzhou

 

Monday afternoon we had our oath taking at the US Consulate office.  It was nothing like I expected it to be.  It was very informal.  In fact, we took our oath along with about 40 other adoptive families.   The paper chase in the US to get your dossier done in order to adopt is intense, time-consuming, and frustrating at times.  However, once you get over here, it is all very easy and very informal.  The oath taking ceremony itself took about 5 minutes.   The US Consulate office isn't very impressive either.   It's on the 5th floor of a regular office building and the only thing to signify that it's the Consulate office is a little sign in the lobby with an American flag on it.    For dinner Monday night, we walked to a restaurant called the Banana Leaf.  It was a Thai restaurant and the food was great.  They even had some entertainment at one point with waiters/waitresses singing and dancing.  THat kept the kids entertained.

Yesterday morning we walked to a nearby park (it's been around 50 degrees here).  The park was very pretty.  There was a little lake that you could rent motorized boats on.  They also had the typical park playground for kids.  In addition to that, they had little roller coasters, a bouncy house, and a small merry go round.  Doug took Alex for his first ride.  He seemed to enjoy it.   THe park was filled with Chinese people playing games, excercising/meditating, a playing badmitton.   Later that afternoon we went to a Folk Museum.  I wasn't that excited about going there, but it turned out to be very neat.   It displayed different craftmanships done by the Chinese people, such as bone carvings, embroidery art, clay sculptures, and porcelin hand paintings.  It was amazing to see their finished products.  They are very talented.

Today we leave the hotel at 2:20 for our 4 hour bus trip to Hong Kong.  We spend the night there at the hotel airport and our flight leaves tomorrow at 11:25AM for Chicago.   Please pray for travel mercies for this very, very long flight with Alex.