Dec. 20th – Guangzhou – Doctor’s Visit

We miss Kunming!!! We miss the slow pace, the beautiful city, the clean air, the quiet park in front of the hotel, the emptiness of the restaurants and streets, the “celebrity status” of being the only Caucasians around and with Chinese babies to boot!

Breakfast this morning was really odd – the restaurant was PACKED with families – Chinese babies in high chairs and Caucasian parents. Saw a few families with older Asian children who were coming back for a little brother or sister. It was really weird – like culture shock – to see SO many adopting families, and so many “regular” faces and hear English spoken by so many people. The other families mentioned the disorientation they were feeling, too.

We had to wait for a high chair, and the lines around the breakfast buffet were long and slow. Laurie did her regular wonderful food foraging for Kaeli and I to get her started before Laurie fought her way back through the crowds for her own sustenance.

We met the other parents in the lobby at 9am and walked across the street for visa photos for the three girls. Then we went on down the street and through a park area to a medical clinic where the girls all had physical exams. There was a special room just for adoptions, and the girls were weighed and measured, had their eyes/nose/throat examined, and then had a quick general physical. Kaeli sailed through everything just fine until the doctor wanted to look at her ears, and then when he dared stick a tongue depressor in her mouth she clamed down hard on it with all 8 teeth and started wailing. The doctor finally gave up, laughed and threw his hands in the air and said “Healthy! Healthy!”.

During the walk to and from the medical office, we saw wonderful bronze life-size statues in the park – one little boy reading a newspaper standing next to a pile of books, another three little girls playing together, a couple of men taking photographs, a teacher playing a musical instrument with a string of little children trailing behind her. We also saw real live children from a pre-school out for their morning stroll, all tied to a long rope behind the teacher. We saw a “regiment” of soldiers going through morning inspections, and passed one of the many exercise areas we’ve seen throughout China – all sorts of different types of exercise equipment done in metal tubing and being used by quite a lot of people.

When we got back to the hotel, we went to Susan’s room and spent the next two hours filling out paperwork for the US embassy. Kaeli was getting VERY restless and tired, so Laurie took her back to our room to settle her down for a nap. When I got back, Kaeli was just about to fall asleep, but my coming in got her up and going again, and it was a while before I got her settled back down and asleep. Laurie went out food foraging and got take-out for us from a Vietnamese restaurant nearby, and Mama tried to get a quick nap with Kaeli.

At 3pm, we got on the bus and went to visit a local Buddhist temple, where Kaeli and Madison were both blessed by a monk in a traditional Chinese ceremony (Alex opted to sleep and didn’t participate). Kaeli was given an orange by one of the workers there who took a liking to her.

Next stop was the Chen clan temple, which was very different than any other temple we’ve seen so far – lots of painted porcelain figures on the rooflines and carved reliefs in granite on the wall. Kaeli was mobbed by local schoolchildren who were on a field trip – they touched her cheeks and played with her and laughed at her and were just entranced. One girl asked if we were from America and I said yes, and that Kaeli would be going back with me. Another little boy about 8 years old told me Kaeli was very beautiful. Kaeli of course loved all the attention!

We then drove to a restaurant for dinner, but walked up and down the streets around it for about half an hour before going in. The streets were crowded, as were the shops, and we saw a shop that only sold honey, one that only sold combs, and lots that sold clothing or shoes. Some shops were so narrow and small only the salesperson could stand inside.

We had dim sum for dinner in a restaurant on the second floor. There were no highchairs available, so Kaeli had dinner on my lap. She is especially eager to touch and play with everything, so feeding her and eating and keeping everything out of reach becomes almost a contact sport. The waitresses don’t help, either – they kept setting things down in front of her and we would have to whisk them away quickly. Kaeli upset a bowl of wonton soup on her and me, and kept trying to pull the tablecloth off the table until we got that folded away from her. Such fun!

Back to the hotel for Kaeli’s first full bath, and she had such a great time! She was not happy when it ended, but soon discovered how much fun it was to run around with nothing on. Then it was bottle time and she went out like a light.