Day 12: Visa photo and medical exam

After breakfast, Elvin, Emily and the boys headed out with the rest of our group and our local guides.  The girls stayed behind with Erica at the hotel.  This is because we were going to do more "logistical" stuff all morning and didn't want to drag the girls along.

Here we are...on the bus again.

Guangzhou's traffic is less crazy than in other parts of China.  The cars stay between the lines, as opposed to ignoring them completely.  Also, honking is outlawed.  If a car gets caught honking, it's a 200 yuan ($33) fine.  You do still hear honking but it's the occasional one as opposed to the incessant honking in other cities.

Here is Xiao Yu taking his visa photo.  He is a pro at taking pictures, and even smiles when he sees the camera.  One our guides, Jocelyn, is in the foreground.  She is a local, is patient with us, and has been working for our adoption agency for many years.  On her job description, there is probably a line saying: "Must be willing to herd cats."

About half an hour later, our guides gave us his paperwork with the photos all printed.  Our guides are very helpful with all the behind-the-scenes logistical stuff that needs to happen to make this work.

We proceeded upstairs to an international clinic.  It is across the street from the U.S. consulate, and is quite large.  We presume that it derives most of it's business from the Chinese applying for visas to enter the U.S.

There is a section, however, just for us...

When we got there, there were no doctors there!  So we had to wait.  

The doctors slowly filtered in.  First stop, the ENT doc to check out his ears.  Emily said that doctor looked at Xiao Yu's ears for about a millisecond and a half.  He was wearing one of those old-school things on his forehead that looks like the underside of a music CD.

Then Xiao Yu had his height, weight, and temp checked by two nurses.  They were about to pick up Xiao Yu when Emily warned them that he bites.  They asked Emily to put him on the scale, in that case.

That's 12.8 kilos, or about 27 pounds.

Then his general check up.  It went smoothly.  We're not sure what they are all looking for.  Xiao Yu was lucky in that he doesn't have to get a TB test, which is a blood draw for those two and over.  He was 2 days shy of his 2nd birthday.

All eleven kids in our group had to get checked out, so all in all it took about 2.5 hours for the whole thing.  On the way out, we noticed a vending machine selling wine and liquor.  No ID check.  Maybe it's strategically placed here for frazzled adoptive parents on their way out who need a little "something-something" to sip on?

Meanwhile, in the hotel, Eliana, Karina and Erica did some exploring.  Erica is a master hair braider and braided Eliana's hair into a double braid crown.

The hotel has a garden and they found a waterfall.

There was also a small playground.  

They also walked over to 7-Eleven to buy bottled water and the girls got to drink a Slurpee.  Eliana chose to mix Coke with Strawberry and Karina's was all Strawberry flavored.

While the boys were taking a MUCH needed nap, and the girls were enjoying an afternoon of paper dolls and Mary Poppins, Elvin and Erica took a walk to explore the surroundings outside the hotel.  Here is a tall building being renovated.  The scaffolding you see is all made of bamboo lashed together.

For the bicycle aficionados out there, how's this for a novel design?  We took this picture right outside of a kindergarten, during kid pick-up time.

Later on, we saw this little stand selling noodles.  We stopped because Gabriel wanted to watch this man cook, of course.  You could pick out what you wanted on the skewers, whether that be vegetables or meats, and the guy would throw those into boiling water.  A couple minutes later, he would ladle noodles, the now cooked veggies/meat, and some broth into a bowl lined with a plastic baggy and voila, dinner for a dollar!

Our guides organized for us, however, a dinner consisting of Papa John's delivery.  We were taking a night river cruise on the Pearl River, which according to them, is the 4th longest river in China at 1,000 miles in length.  The mouth of it is near Guangzhou.  The government has spent considerable amount of money decorating the buildings and bridges by the river with colored lights.  We got a combo pizza and also another pizza that was half pepperoni and olives (per Gabriel's request) and half cheese (for Eliana and Karina).

 This is the boat that we boarded.

We ate dinner in a seating area inside the boat.  This was most likely Xiao Yu's first encounter with a pizza.  He liked it, but insisted on eating his slice using a fork.

Then we went topside to look around.

We passed lots of other boats with "pretty" lights, as Gabriel put it.

The girls enjoyed the boat ride.

This tall building, the Canton Tower, was decorated with lights that changed color.  A rainbow building, as Karina put it.

The boat ride also had a demonstration of a tea ceremony.  Unfortunately, we didn't know what most of it meant as there were several complicated steps and the explanation was in Chinese.

It also featured a lady playing the gu zheng (pronounced "goo jung") which lays horizontal and is plucked.

The lady used the right hand to pluck the strings while the left hand pressed down on the strings to make the notes change in pitch.  Eliana asked if she plucked using her nails...it looked like the player was wearing finger picks on each finger, kind of like what some banjo players wear.  The girls enjoyed this performance and Gabriel listened too.

The boat then returned to the dock and we boarded our bus again.  By then, Xiao Yu was very tired and cranky, so we put him to bed right away.  He did not enjoy the boat ride or evening out very much, we think we may try and give him a "day off" tomorrow.

Tomorrow, there are no big plans.  The guides are offering to take those who want to go to a wholesale pearl market to buy pearls in the morning.  We're assuming that our guides have submitted Xiao Yu's visa application to the U.S. consulate and it takes a couple of days to process.

Also, the name chops for all four kids arrived to our hotel from our order yesterday.  They came in their very own silk encased box.