Hello again! Sorry it has been so long since I updated the blog. We have been a bit more relaxed here in Guangzhou, and we are all adjusting to our new relationships, so I have been a bit lax with my public relations responsibilities. (left is Megan holding hands with her foster-sister, Claire in Wuhan) For the most part we have been on our own to explore the surrounding neighborhoods here. It is very easy to interact with everyone, as the entire neighborhood seems to be thriving off of the adoption business that pours through the White Swan Hotel non-stop. Almost every shop sells childrens clothing and T-shirts and hats sporting mama, brother, sister, dada, grandma, etc, written in chinese for the proud family members. We know that we are heading for a very popular but traditional shopping district later today, so we have tried to lay off the local trinket dealers goods as much as possible until after we see whats available. Everyone here seems to sell almost identical goods in each shop, so we figure there is a better quality version of everything if we look hard enough! Saturday morning we walked a few blocks to get the children their quick physicals for their visas. Everything went find and only one child in our party was diagnosed with anything. All the kids have had little cold symptoms, but Madalyn had an upper respiratory infection developing, so they gave her a prescription of antibiotics and we were on our way. (right: David and nurses at the clinic) It was a nice walk, and all around the village there were residents appearing to have a normal "weekend", playing badminton and the chinese version of hacky-sack, which is played with something that looks like a weighted badminton birdie made with colorful craft feathers. The kids have been trying to master the game, but so far have only managed to get over their self-consciousness about how they look playing! There are planty of native folk who aren't that good at it either. Later in the afternoon Michele went with one member of each other family to fill out all of the remaining paperwork we had to prepare for the consulate. We also had our laundry done for a reasonable price, which was a relief after what we were charged in Wuhan! It cost the equivalent of about $65 there to wash what we had done her for ~$25. It's funny how quickly your attitude can adjust to the local market value! We all had lunch together again yesterday and it was again about $5 per person for a feast, including sodas and plenty of local beer. You get used to things like that pretty quickly. One family in our group got tired of Chinese food pretty early in the trip, and when they saw a Papa Johns pizza place that delivered they decided we were all ordering pizza last night. Our guide phoned in the order for us and when the pizza showed up it turned out it was almost $20 per pizza!!! I was so torqued! I couldn't get over how expensive it was even by American standards, and it wasn't even good pizza! That'll teach us to eat American. We have tried it a few times but I have been disappointed every time with the exception of the western breakfast food.

So, yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Temple of Chen, which is not a religious temple at all, but a family memorial. It is actually an elaborate garden and park area. There were a few nice stores, including a wonderful art gallery where you could watch a few local artists performing works. We had a beautiful scroll made for Megan with her chinese name on it, and found some nice pieces of artwork to bring home with us. One artist was doing Chinese fingerpainting, which is phenomenal if you haven't seen it before. They make beautifully detailed lanscape ink paintings using only their hands and fingers. It is amazing to watch. We also found some nice winter scenes painted by a famous Chinese artist. We were told by our guide that the temple shops were legitimate goods, so we trust that they were really done by him. They will make nice Winter decorations at home. Afterwards we stopped at another Carrefour store, which is not Wal-mart, but apparently Wal-mart is its primary stockholder! They make the cashiers where Carrefour hats, which look exactly like the paper Burger King hats from home. We were tempted to ask for some but didn't want to embarass anyone, so we behaved ourselves.
Today we should be receiving Megan's visa from the American consulate. Our guide, David, will go and pick them up for us. We have to go to the consulate tomorrow for the "swearing in" ceremony, so we will see it then, but it is about an hour away so there was no need to put the kids through the extra busride for no reason. David should be back about 2:30pm, at which time we are going to have our "red couch" photos taken at the famous red couch here at the White Swan. It is a White Swan adoption tradition, so it is a "must do". After that it is off on our shopping spree and then to another group dinner! One of the most recent highlights of the trip was going to the ATM this morning and seeing our bank account balances in Chinese Yuan!! Woohoo!! Wish that was real dollars!
Anyway... I'll try to get at least one more update in before we head out... probably tomorrow night. Have a great day!

(stockings go on the head, right?)