Guangzhou

We are now in Guangzhou, where we will get Emma Lee’s visa and where she will become an American citizen before we fly home.
We were reunited with our original group here in Guangzhou, and it was fun seeing all the families we met in Beijing with their new children. Surprisingly, there are as many adopted boys as girls, with the children ranging in age from 1 to about 5.
Several parents have been amazed over how much the children seem to resemble their parents, or seem like a perfect match. God works in mysterious ways.
Several parents greeted Emma Lee and told us how beautiful and sweet she is. We smiled at the beautiful and rolled our eyes at the sweet.
All the children had to have medical exams this morning, and that was an adventure. Imagine going to the doctor’s office and it being packed with families, all with little Chinese children. It was controlled chaos.
They had their height, weight and temperature checked and then saw the doctor, who checked their medical records and gave them physical exams. They then checked their eyes and hearing and gave some of a TB test. Some of the children had to have vaccines. We asked them to give Emma Lee a meanness shot, but they wouldn’t.
She continues to be very sweet one moment, and an absolute terror the next. We almost got thrown out of the Pizza Hut this afternoon and an Italian restaurant tonight. We tried to trade her for a large super supreme at Pizza Hut but they wouldn’t take her.
She is still jabbering in Chinese, but picking up a few words in English. She kept opening the door on Missy today while she was in the bathroom. Before she would shut the door, she would wave and say, “Bye, bye.”
She appears to be calling me “Dah or Dah Dah” and Missy “Yah or Yah Yah.” Missy hates that because she thinks “Yah Yah” means grandma in Chinese.
After the medical exams, we went grocery shopping.
That was also an adventure. We went to a super store that was like a Chinese Wal-Mart, only worse. It was packed with Chinese pushing their buggies all over the place. It made Wal-Mart in Gastonia seem like Heaven.
Guangzhou is a beautiful city. It is night-and-day different from Anhui Province and Hefei. It is a lot like New York City, with huge skyscrapers surrounded by nice hotels, restaurants and shops.
It has beautiful tree-lined streets and is a very international city. There are people from all over the world mixing with the Chinese people. It is also very western. We are staying at the Asia International Hotel. There is a Pizza Hut and KFC next door and a McDonald’s right across the street. And everyone in our group was ecstatic to find a Starbucks down the street.
Compared to where we were last week, this city is almost normal, except it is extremely hot. It was 96 when we got off the plane at 9 p.m. last night. It was so hot today that you couldn’t walk more than a block down the street without being drenched in sweat. It’s like Gastonia in mid-August.
We’re going shopping on Shaiman Island tomorrow, and then to a “paperwork party” where we have to fill out her visa application.
More from the Far East tomorrow.