Step By Step

It's Saturday here in China (I think - the days all seem the same and it's REALLY hard to keep track). Yesterday was spent getting our final adoption papers and Victoria's Chinese passport in Harbin, and then taking a four and a half hour plane trip from Harbin to Guangzhou. It's the end of the Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival holiday period, and Harbin gets a LOT of tourists from within China and from elsewhere to see the Snow and Ice Festival, so the Harbin airport and our flight to Guangzhou were packed. We arrived in Guangzhou at about 7:30pm, and by the time we got our luggage and rode from the airport to our hotel, it was after 9. We were all tired and the beds at the Garden Hotel, where we are staying, are VERY luxurious (like everything at this place),so we called it day a little early.

Today was Tori's medical exam (which she has to have to obtain a visa from the U.S. Consulate). After a hearty breakfast, we boarded a bus with two other families and traveled to Shamian Island, where the clinic that does the exams is located.




Years ago, when we first adopted from China, the U.S. Consulate was on Shamian Island and almost all of the adopting families stayed at a great hotel on the island called the White Swan. But over the years things have been changing. The Consulate moved off the island somewhere between 2003 when we adopted Marissa and 2008 when we came here to get Jensyn. Last year the White Swan closed for complete renovation that is expected to take at least a year. And our guides told us that sometime next month the medical clinic is moving off Shamian Island, also. Families that are here to adopt now are spread out in 3 or 4 fancy hotels around the city. The important paperwork still gets done, but the "shared experience" is less "shared".

Anyway.....on the way to the clinic, we stopped at a nearby shop and had a picture taken for the visa, then we walked down the street to get the exam. Unfortunately for Tori, kids older than 10 have to get any immunizations they need here in China (for younger kids you can sign an affidavit stating that you will get them caught up when you get home, but not for the older kids), and according to the immunization records we received in Harbin, she needed 4 shots (and a TB skin test that all the kids get). She needed a modest amount of restraint and she objected very vocally to the whole process, but the nurses giving her the shots did a pretty good job of not drawing it out any longer than necessary. Like most kids, she seemed fine a few minutes later and the rest of the exam was completed without any problems.




After the exam, we had about an hour to walk around Shamian Island and see many familiar places.




If we had time for a longer visit, we would have eaten at Lucy's, a place where we always headed for "American" food at the end of our adoption trips....maybe later.




The rest of today is down time, which is good for Tori, who has been tiring out a little from all the walking we have had to do. Tomorrow is sightseeing while we wait for appointments at the Consulate early next week. Everyone is doing fine for now.




And it's finally starting to feel normal looking for a table for six when we go out to eat :-)



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