Trip to China
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Monday, August 4, 2008 First and foremost, we want to think everyone for all your posts in the guestbook! We read every comment and really appreciate you taking the time to weigh in. When we get through with the trip we'll take some time to reply back but right now we're going pretty hard in China. As it is, it takes at least two hours to do our blog post each day, usually late at night or very early morning by me (Sean). Anyway, your comments have not gone unnoticed and we appreciate them. The official business for the day was a trip to the doctor for a medical examination. We met in our usual meeting place by the glass doors on the 1st floor. The doctor's office is just a short walk away on the north side of the island, about 6 blocks or so. The sign over the front door says "Health Care Center of Guangdong International Travel". The locals refer to it as the "Western Doctor", but I can assure you there are no western doctors there. There is however, a special room where the adopted children go for their exams. This room has 3 stations - a station for general examination, a station for height and weight, and a station for ENT. The kids must have thought the stations were the rack, the gallows, and the guillotine, because most of them were all screaming. The main part of the torture chamber is pretty tight, especially with our behemoth group and all its strollers. The instruments of torture are the stethoscope, the scale, and the tongue depressor. Chaos ensued, it was noisy and great - and thankfully temporary. YaYa really seems to have the diaper changing thing down. We're thinking she'll fit right in as a contortionist for Cirque du Soleil. Quick tangent. We are getting a WICKED storm right now! It's about 10:45pm local time and it's been going since about 8:30pm. The thunder is so loud it's setting off car alarms down on the street, which we can hear on the 11th floor. It looks like most of the island and downtown just lost power because it has become pretty dark. The rain is like tropical storm strength. And I'm loving it. I've always loved a good storm. I'm trying to capture some good lightning shots but not sure how they'll turn out through the water droplets on the window. Even though it's pitch dark out, the lightning lights up the city like it's daytime. Back to the day. Next up was some minor paperwork corrections, and frankly the first surprise we've had. Some of the things to be "corrected" were not explained in our paperwork instructions back home. There were a couple minor additions to the I-604 and the I-600, then the biggie. Apparently we are supposed to have an addendum to our home study that spells out the change to special needs. Nope, nada, zip, zilch. We don't have it. I'm going to contact Holt tonight to see if they have it but we definitely do not. I brought every piece of paperwork we've saved since the beginning but after a thorough scouring, I couldn't find such a thing. I know we're not the only family in this predicament either. Hopefully Holt will be able to help us out. After cramming that in, we made our way to the 2nd floor for the infamous "Red Couch" picture. Try smearing butter all over 20 cats and then try to round them up and make them sit still while they whine and howl. That would be easier than taking a red couch picture with all these babies. Ironically, as crabby as she was all day, YaYa was a perfect little angel and sat for the camera no problem. I'll post these pictures tomorrow because my Dad was taking them today and I forgot to get his memory card. After the red couch picture, we got a huge group picture on the landing in front of the giant waterfall.  At least the parents could hold the buttered cats for this one. Holt had arranged for an afternoon "tea" in the dining area. Doesn't that just sound so presumptuous? [read with a British accent and stick your pinky out] "Shall we have some tea and crumpets Jeeves?" "Jolly good, ta-ta". Yesterday Catherine had taken great care to explain to us that an afternoon tea in China was a means of getting a bite to eat and a refreshment for less money than you would spend on a normal dinner, simply because it was a little earlier. She could have just said "Happy Hour" and every American would instantly know what she was talking about. The tea was nice. You had your choice of tea or coffee for free and anything else would come with a charge. There were lots of choices for food though, including all kinds of grilled meat and fish, fruit, and desserts. I would recommend staying away from the pork however, as it was about 99% fat. The chocolate fountain was a big hit though and the boys figured out that the chocolate hardened over ice cream. Magic Shell anyone? YaYa continued to be crabby through the tea and for the rest of the day. She has shown us a new and unique personality every day. Today's personality was "I'm a movie star and I get what I want". If you took something away, it was a 5 minute screaming fit that resonated throughout the hotel and most of Guangzhou. It's possible they even heard it in Taiwan. I heard some of the athletes in Beijing actually looked up during their practices wondering what the noise was. This evening we took a little stroll around the island to do some souvenir shopping for friends and family back home. All of China is getting prepped for the Olympic Games. It's weird, when the Games came to Salt Lake, you didn't have other American cities participating in the hoopla, but this is such a source of great national pride for China that the Games are celebrated all throughout the country. Guangzhou is no exception and you can see lighting displays all up and down the Pearl River, including the White Swan. You can tell we're getting a little loopy now. Back at the hotel we took our candy dishes and turned YaYa into Princess Leia. Then the boys took them and did their best rendition of Monty Python and the search for the Holy Grail. Well, it's very late now and tomorrow (actually today now) is our big trip to Maoming City. I think I hear YaYa crying next door, but every time I get up to listen at the door I don't hear anything. There are so many babies here that it could be any room within a 6 room radius. Ta-ta

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