All I can say is WOW, what a storm we had last night. When we woke up and looked out the window, all we saw was about 2 feet of water covering the streets around our hotel. The Typhoon did not have a direct hit, but the outer rain bands sure dumped a lot of rain. Now we know how the people along the coast feel when they get a lot of rain with their hurricanes. We got ready and went to breakfast, and my, what a feast it was. There was everything you could think of to eat. We had heard a lot about the breakfast bar at the White Swan Hotel during our wait, but we had no idea how much food there really was.
After breakfast, we met in the lobby to take the babies for their visa photos and medical exam. It was a treat just to walk a few blocks through the water to get to the buildings where the medical department was. Along the way, we saw some very interesting things. For those of you who like to fish, I believe the fish back home would be scared of the night crawlers we saw. I have never seen any worm that big in my life. The guides have lived in Guangzhou a long time and said they have never seen any that big.
At the Visa photo place and the Doctors' examination office, Savannah did fine during the photo, but she did not like the exam at all. There were only a few babies that didn't cry during the exam, and Savannah wasn't one of them. Once we were finished, we stopped along the road at a few shops and did some shopping. The people were nice, and they like to barter. They give you a price, then you give them your price. This goes on until someone says ok, we'll take it. After shopping we headed back to the hotel.
At 2:30pm one family member met in our guide's room and completed some paperwork for the U.S. Consulate. This took about 1 1/2 hours to complete. The guides then took our paperwork and delivered it to the Consulate office, on which we must now wait until Friday to receive Savannah's visa. This is the only thing we now need to bring her home. We are almost there.
After the paperwork was complete we walked to a nice Italian restaurant and ate dinner with a couple from Seattle, WA. It was a very good meal, and it was kind of weird to hear the Chinese waitress speak Italian. Once dinner was over, we took Savannah to the play room and let her play for about an hour. Back to our room and a quick bath and to bed. She is sound asleep. Time for me too. We'll continue our journey tomorrow. There is an optional tour we are going to decline and try to finish our shopping instead. That's all for now...
Jordan and Tannor: Only 3 more days for you. We can't wait to get home and get things back to normal, well, almost normal. We love you guys and will see you Saturday.
