Moving Right Along

This morning started like most others.  Got the gang downstairs before they closed the breakfast buffet.  Joshua did what he usually does and temporarily stopped disliking me as long as I brought him food (he's clearly a Shanks).  He and Lora had fun wrestling around on the floor a bit after we finished eating (I sent a pic of this earlier today and, if you can't see it on the blog, you can get a copy by emailing my mom).

After breakfast we toured around the hotel a bit as they have a connected convention center and a nicer restaurant that we did not eat at while there.  Outside the "nicer" restaurant we found several fish tanks with all manner of marine life in them with price tags on the tanks.  Fish, lobsters, oysters, crabs, and one tank had these huge salamander things in it and price of about 2,500 RMB (which is about $400 US).  These salamanders were about two feet long and I'm not sure which part you're supposed to eat or what it's like, but no thanks.  They also had several items displayed in cases that had little note cards explaining what these delicacies where good for in terms of physical, mental, and spiritual health.  This display included deer antler, deer tail, sea cucumber (which is not a vegetable), abalone, shark fins, and several weird little mushroom-type things.  Glad we didn't eat there, I'll stick with the quasi-western buffet, thank you.

Naps at noon and then we met our guide at about 2:00 and checked out at the same time.  We needed to pick up Joshua's passport so we could actually take him somewhere with us (for two days we've been the legal guardian of this child but we've had no authority to take him anywhere).  It normally takes at least a week to get a Chinese passport.  You can get an expedited one in 5 days.  Apparently they've made a special arrangement for adoptive families so they won't have to wait so long.  So, we went to the place where they make the passports and waited around a bit outside the gate.  After about 10 minutes some guy came to the fence and our guide met him, they exchanged some paperwork and she came back with Joshua's passport.  Pretty shady business to me but I don't care, we got his passport.

From there we went to the airport.  We had about 3 hours to kill so we found a Cafe.  While perusing the menu Heather saw an item labeled "spicy donkey meat".  I HAD to try that.  It was weird, don't know if was really donkey meat or not.  Everything else was fine.  Outside the cafe was a small play area so we let Lora wear herself out playing Kung-Fu with some little Chinese boys that were there.  It was a site.  After about 30 minutes Joshua couldn't stand it any more and mustered the courage to go play as well.  After a couple of trips down the slide he turned into Mr. Adventure and was all over the place.  Overall Joshua seems to get less glued to Heather every day and this was a time when he nearly forgot she existed.  In the last day or so he seems to have gotten more OK with Lora as well.  He's getting there.  I can't imagine what all this must be like for him, I'd be scared to death.

Our flight was a trip.  The plane had one aisle with three seats on one side, three on the other (think Southwest Airlines and you'll be pretty close).  Our agency booked all the tickets without our input and they put 3 of us on one side of the aisle and the fourth by themself on the other side.  Since Joshua won't sit by me, Heather sat with Lora and Joshua and I sat across the aisle.  Heather and the kids managed to spill everything that could be spilled, I served as the pit crew supplying napkins, wipes, holding trash, etc...  The plane was really hot too, couldn't land fast enough.

When we landed, we met our guide and came to the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou.  It doesn't take long to see that we're in a different part of China.  So far, Guangzhou looks like "China for Americans".  We'll see more of it tomorrow of course.  The Hotel is very nice and is clearly much more "western" down to the corny lounge singer in the lobby.  The best part is that it doesn't smell like stale cigarette smoke everywhere any more!

The kids are in their beds and we won't be far behind.