April 4, 2005 Two more days, and we are homeward bound. :-) We had a long day of shopping and running about in the shops today. I am so tired of saying, "Too much!!! …I give you _____ for that." I actually like to bargain, but this is ridiculous. I asked about this one book 3 times in one shop and got 3 answers ranging from 30 RMB to 120 RMB. It is crazy. We have gotten some good stuff, well a lot of stuff, I should say. I was going to get a knockoff watch today, but the knockoff was just too bad. I told Heidi that it is not a good sign when the guy takes it out of the case and sees that it is not running, and then proceeds to bang it against his hand a couple of times to make it work. Heidi has it easy, she just goes in picks out what she wants and tells me to work my magic and walks away. We are all getting tired of China. I have talked to several people in our group, and we are all about ready to leave. I told Heidi that even the flight was not looking nearly as long as it was a week ago. We went to McDonald's today for lunch, and Heidi could not stomach her Big Mac. She said that she could not take anymore fast food. She had lunch and dinner at the noodle shop next door to the hotel. I have to say it is pretty good food and is ridiculously cheap. We ate in there tonight for $5 US total. Leah decided that she was not going to take a nap today. She slept in the stroller for about 30 minutes around noon, but did not sleep anymore the rest of the day. She has been grouchy all day, but she also has had a bit of stomach upset. She had her medical exam at the clinic this morning and checked out a-ok. Of course, I do not know if they would have noticed anything short of her missing an appendage. It was not what I would call thorough. She did not cry one time, and even smiled sweetly at each doctor. However, they didn't really do anything to make her mad. It was chaos in the clinic with so many children and adoptive parents from all of the different groups in there. It was a mad dash to get through the three lines. She had three exams: a full body exam, an ENT exam, and height, weight and temperature check. By the way, she weighs 19.5 lbs officially. The doctors all said she was a beautiful baby. In the morning tomorrow, our guide is going to the U.S. consulate to take our paperwork. We have to sit by the phone from 10:30 until ??? we hear from him that the paperwork has been approved. Tomorrow afternoon the group goes to the consulate and is sworn as the babies' parents. Then Wednesday at 4:00, we get the visas and Thursday AM, it is homeward bound. So far we still don't have that direct flight out of Tokyo and will be making that layover in LA. This has been an interesting trip. The trip over was horrible for us. With all of the apprehension of becoming a parent on top of the travel to a foreign country and having no help with our agency was extremely stressful. We have all settled in nicely, however, and have become relatively comfortable in our surroundings. It has as a whole been a great experience, and I would recommend it to anyone (both the adoption and the trip). To tell the truth, I had no urge to travel to China. I still do not think that it would be my vacation destination of choice, but it has been an eye opening experience. I can tell you one thing--we do not have poor people in the U.S. There are poor people here. The majority of the people here get around on a bicycle (both young and old), or if you are fortunate, a scooter. There are lots of cars, but they are only for the relatively rich. I had an opportunity to ask our guide about some of the things about everyday life in China. This was our guide in Nanchang. His name is Bruce. He makes a good living, but does not have a car; he has a bicycle. Bruce told me that you cannot own land here. You lease it from the government for 30 to 70 years. People have the choice to renew it but the government does not have to renew the lease. So if you built your own house and the government chooses not to renew your lease, you lose it, too, and everything else on the property. It is hard to believe. Bruce seemed very hesitant to discuss it in detail. It is strange that in the midst of this little enclave of capitalism around the hotel, that we are in a communist/socialist country. The traffic is somewhat more sensible here in Guangzhou, or at least around the island it appears to be. In Nanchang, it was just a complete mess with no rules that we could tell. It is a strange feeling pulling out of a side street into a solid packed, major thoroughfare and not even stopping. However, we didn't witness one accident while in Nanchang, so the system works...somehow. According to our guides, it you have a wreck, you hurry up and settle it between the two of you before the police arrive. If the police arrive, most of the time, they will fine and tow both cars, no matter whose fault it was. There is very little concern about dents or scrapes on cars. We found out some information about the Pearl River that the hotel sits on. Up until a couple of years ago, Guangzhou dumped all of the city's untreated sewage in the river. We were told that the fish are just now coming back into the river. Our guide said it was pretty smelly in the summer time. I think it gets fairly humid here in the summer, so I bet the city did smell rather gross. It's time for bed. Talk to you again tomorrow. Love, Rich, Heidi and Leah   Aaaahhhh!     Give me a kiss!   Going for a Stroll     Happy Leah before Exam     I love my PJ's.     This page hosted by