Trip to China
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Wednesday, August 6, 2008 There really wasn't a whole lot going on today. Our official business was the swearing in ceremony at the US consulate which wasn't to happen until 2:45. We spent the day doing a little souvenir shopping and then got YaYa down for a nap. We all went as a group to the consulate, about a half hour drive away downtown, next to Ikea and the train station. It was raining pretty hard but the White Swan has loaner umbrellas so we'd taken a couple. Walking in to the consulate you notice an obvious lack of security. We expected more armed guards and metal detectors but we didn't run into anyone like that until the third floor.

Then it was just like a TSA screening except that you can't take any cameras, cell phones, or liquids into the consulate itself. That's why you won't see any pictures today. Inside it looked a lot like another DMV. There were other groups there too so we all sat around chatting. The kids were playing with some toys they had laid out. We did a quick verification to match the parents to the children and then it was time for the group oath. All the people at the consulate look Chinese. A woman came out to administer the oath and although she looked Chinese, she spoke flawless English. I imagine she's probably doing a 2 year stint or something in country. She then gave a count of all the families that were adopting their first child. Then those adopting their second child. Fewer for the third. Fewer still for the fourth. Then just one family that was adopting their fifth child... guess who. I don't feel so bad though because the record is 12. For the oath we all raised our right hands and simply said "I do" after she stated the oath. There was a round of applause and that was it, we were outta there. The rest of the day we spent doing a little more shopping and dinner was back at Cow and Bridge. Theresa and Dave had joined us and we had a nice time.

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