Day 8, Medical Exam, Buddhist Blessing, 10 Family Temple, and a Pearl River Cruise…….whew

Let me just start off by saying sorry for the delay in posting, yesterday was an all day affair and I mean all day. It was a non-stop non stop-ness.

First thing after breakfast, we (and all the other 55 CHI families and any other US parents adopting) had to go and get London’s physical. This is required by the US government (I guess) to get her a visa to enter the US.

Man what chaos. This place has 3 main stations and each kid has to go through each. At first they sat us all in this hallway with a big sign that says “please keep your babies quiet.” Yeah like that was going to happen!

They hand us each a folder for our baby. With all her information and her two visa pictures. I forgot to mention that yesterday we took London to get a visa photo. It was a mess because the “professional” photographer wouldn’t actually take the shot. Man was he annoying! It was like his memory card was too small and or he didn’t know how to delete one he didn’t like. Christe had to end up sitting with her and that was even worse but eventually he settled on taking a shot and we were on our way. Oh, yeah, and for those of you traveling to china to do this, I believe this is the last time you pay fees for anything relative to the adoption.

So back to the hospital, they stuck two pictures (and now the guy had wiped out any of the background –including Christe’s hands–) of our baby into a little plastic sleeve stapled onto our baby’s folder and information.

Wait, wait, wait, the pictures I have are not my baby. I had another kids and as it turned out so did most of the other parents. I think all but two families had the wrong pictures. NICE!

Back to the exam, the first station was a lady with a stethoscope and a thermometer. Her job was to make the baby cry with the cold stethoscope, then take the baby’s all important armpit temprature and then strip the kid down to verify that we weren’t sneeking a boy out of the country. Yup, she’s a girl! So onto step two.

Step two was a male ‘doctor’ and he picked up a toy and made sure London grabbed for the toy and followed it side to side. Then he picked up another toy that made noise and shook it on one side of her head until she turned to grab it, and then he moved it to the other side and repeated the procedure. Then it was on to step three.

Step three was the weight and length test, 20+ lbs and 28 inches. That’s it. A very thorough examination to verify she was healthy enough for America! She’s a girl who doesn’t like cold on her back, who doesn’t like noisy things on the side of head but would prefer them in front of her and she weighs something and is longer than inch. Yup that’s it. Needless to say, all the babies passed.
Just after we walked down the street we came across a store that had baby clothes in it so we had to stop in. Sure we bought some things, some things for now and some things for when she’s a bit bigger but that’s not why I mention it. I mention it because this is where I came across the today’s co-winner of the “best misuse of the English language” award. This is another one of those things I haven’t been documenting well enough but there is no such thing as a proofreader this country. I’ve told Christe I think I could start a business over here and make a million dollars. I would just proofread the English and they could pay me and I would be rich. On the other hand I don’t think anyone cares.

So anyway the first of the days co-winners hails from a random clothing shop on Shamian Island. He’s clearly a boys pair of pants. I’m not sure who his target audience is. He has to be considered very worthwhile by the store owner as he is hanging on the wall. Here he is…………. for the first time on the internet……………… it’s “acute naughty!”

So after the store we walked up a side street and then split off from our guides and what was left of the group. We went left past a small park with and older couple in some sort of back massaging teeter-totter, past a bridal shop, to the point we thought we couldn’t walk anymore. There we took a left and walked through a construction zone where the bamboo scaffolding assembly union local 927 was on lunch break. Christe thought we might be “a little out of our area”.

We walked up to the Pearl River and walked along the walkway. What supprised me was that there were no hand rails or rails of any sort to keep kids from falling in. In the US this area would be off limits, here people are free to fall in if they want. This is clearly not a litigious society.

We continued up the river walk, past the playground and square dance lesson (square dancing in the outdoors is very popular here) where we happened upon a guy fishing. We had seen several people fishing but Christe wanted to know ‘what’ they were fishing for. One guy had a really (I mean really, really) big hand made scoop net but I don’t thing he was catching anything. So when we came across a guy with a orange-red bucket I asked if I could take a picture of his catch. I know the picture is bad but it was all snakes and one eel. MMM MMM good! Now that’s the type of stuff that makes your tummy rumble and your mouth water!

Then it was up the river walk a little further until we had to turn left into a public square that turned out to be on the backside of Lucy’s Diner. That’s where I found the other co-winner for the “best misuse of the English language” award. This one really caught my eye and made me realize that even the government of this fine community doesn’t have a proofreader. At least the local pants maker may not have the resources to check on some words but you’d thing the government would. None-the-less, the get the message across and I only spit somewhere and not everywhere.

Then it was back to the hotel where we met up with our local guides to go on a small jaunt to the 7 Banyan Buddhist Temple. This is where us and a few other families would get our babies blessed by a Buddhist priest. Also we got to tour the grounds and Ashley, who is Buddhist, was able to tell us a lot about the different shrines. It was very neat and somewhat powerful. It was a very significant event in London’s short life and she showed her reverence of the event and to the priest by saying something like, “Hey check out my shoe”, “Look it’s a sandal, you wear sandals don’t you”, “I like my sandal, check it out, YO!”

After that we went to the 10 family temple or shrine or something. It took 10 families money and 4-5 years to build and was completed by about 1905, which is brand new by China standards. It was very ornate and had lots of color but most of us wanted to get back to the hotel to freshen up before we were to go on the Pearl River cruise.

This was awesome. We were told the food was going to be crappy and it was! The views however, were awesome, just awesome. I’ll include the sunset shot and then a night shot. The cruise starts out about 6 pm or so and I think we didn’t de-boat (if that’s a thing) until after 9pm.
Word to the traveler; keep your babies close on the way to and from the dock. They have these little kids hand your baby a flower and the baby of course grabs it and won’t let go. Then the follow you until you give them money. Then you’re forced to pull out your money and the kids’ dad runs up on you. I shoved my money back in my pocket yanked the flower out her hand and shoved it back at the kid but he wouldn’t take it. I said fine and moved on but I found out that our local guide gave him a Chinese buck or two, so I had to pay him back.

So I guess that’s about it. For those of you who just follow these things for the pictures of London I’ll throw a couple in from this morning. One is her showing her sword fighting moves with a plastic spoon the other is where she realizes that daddy’s camera is something to get REALLY close to.
Enjoy…….right now we’re stuck in our room waiting until 11am in case the phone rings. Peggy is at the American consulate with all of our paperwork getting the visas.