Guangzhou Day Three

It's late in the afternoon on August 12 and we are all resting up after Anli took us all on a walking tour of the old (non-touristy) part of Guangzhou. It was really interesting but also HOT (made even hotter since I was wearing the baby in the Snugli baby carrier thing!). Although we were all dragging from the heat, Anli said it is normally a lot hotter this time of year in Guangzhou so we were thankful it wasn't even worse. The babies were fine with the heat and humidity -- again, they seem to be used to it so it's the adults who are overheating.

Basically, the part of town Anli took us to is a shopping district that felt a bit like a farmers market except the things people were selling were very unsual -- huge mushrooms and bags of various dried roots and things used in traditional Chinese medicine. It was hard to tell what some of the stuff was but there were big bags of dried out sea horses, starfish, snakes, etc. There was also a big section with live animals -- rabbits, mice, turtles, fish, birds, etc. There were also pets for sale -- dogs, cats, fish, etc. There were also stalls selling prepared food and drinks. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in terms of the scale, the number of people, the smells, and the unusual variety of items for sale.

We stayed away from purchasing any of the food items -- that probably would have finished us all off. But I did buy a watch for $2 (my watch stopped working in Nanchang) and Jim bought a big suitcase. R bought a small Hello Kitty suitcase to put the baby's things in on the way home. After we had been out for a few hours, I started fading and the baby was starting to feel really heavy in the Snugli. We made it back to the hotel just as I ran out of energy.

After a quick lunch break, Jim, Scott, & I met Anli in her room to fill in the adoption paperwork that Anli needs to submit to the US Consulate tomorrow. There were about five forms and they all had to be completed exactly right. Anli walked us through line by line. In some forms, we had to fill in the baby's name for "name". In other forms, we filled in our names. In some forms, we had to use Chinese date format. In other forms we used US date format. As we had done all along on this trip, we just did whatever Anli told us to do. It felt good to get all of the forms filled out and also to get Anli's confirmation that we had brought the correct forms with us to China. We'll find out tomorrow afternoon whether the Consulate is ok with all of our paperwork.

I have posted a few photos -- mostly of our trip to the old part of Guangzhou plus one really cute one of J Ro in our room. More later.

J.