Today was the last day in China. Tomorrow we head for home. We are all glad to be going home, but also sad. The friendships we made here, I'm sure, will last forever. We met a lot of very nice people on this trip to get Savannah, and although we all want to get home and back to our lives, we will miss all those who we spent the last 16 days with.
Our day started off with a trip to the pearl market. We all took about a 10 minute taxi ride to the market. The market was huge. There were all kinds of stores: Jade, Pearl, Ivory, etc. We shopped around and bought Savannah and Haleigh an Onyx bracelet, Melinda a Jade and Silver necklace, and a few things for Savannah for when she is older. After a 10 minute taxi ride back to the hotel, we all took a short nap before taking a 45 minute bus ride to the Consulate office to take the oath. There were 42 families from different agencies who gathered for the ceremonies. We received Savannah's visa and a brown envelope, which we are not to open until we get to customs at the Chicago O'Hare airport.
We arrived back at the hotel around 4:00 and decided to try to get our last bit of shopping done before our family dinner at 6:00. Six families gathered to have one last dinner before we are to travel home. The menu was quite interesting--some of the usual, but there were two unique dishes, 1 dish of deep fried silk worms, and a dish of some kind of hard shell bug. It kind of reminded me of Fear Factor. There were quite a few brave individuals who tried the different food.
After dinne,r we all headed back to our rooms to finish up our packing. We have to be up and ready to leave the hotel by 6:50am. Which leaves me with saying this. We would like to thank everyone for following our journey and a special thanks for those who signed our guest book, sent emails, and had us in your prayers. We did read every email, but are sorry we couldn't respond to all of them. Enjoy the last several pictures and the next post will be from home.
The Deckers signing out from China. It's been a great trip...
Jordan and Tannor: We are on our way. See you soon.
