January 11th: Helping the economy of Guangzhou

Today we started with another wonderful breakfast at the White Swan. One nice thing about this hotel is that they seat adoptive families generally in 1 area so you get to know people and get to visit daily at breakfast.

After breakfast we walked in the rain to the clinic for the reading of the children’s TB Skin Test. It was so messy with all the construction. All 3 kids in our group showed false positive and had to get chest X-Rays to show they are OK. All 3 showed OK on the x-ray. By the time we headed back the rain had stopped.

Next stop was the famous “Red Couch Photos” at the White Swan. These are always a nice take away to remember people in your travel group with. (see photo on the slide show at top)

After the photos we had to go out and do our part to stimulate the economy of Guangzhou. We really did not spend that much but with the exchange rate it seemed like a lot. Interesting tidbit of trivia, the largest bill in the Yuan (Chinese Money) is the 100 which is only $15 US. So you end up with a thick wad of money in your wallet for just routine shopping.

We went to the pearl market to shop for pearls. One of the things we do is to purchase gifts for every year on the anniversary of our girls adoption day and we give them a gift from China. One special one is for 16th birthday they get a nice string of pearls and ear rings. So today we went to purchase those. Very nice pearls at a fraction of the US price. Check out the photo of the pearl shop. Robin also got a nice set of ear rings for herself.

We also hit a few other stores to check out their goods and found a few other items. No trip to China is complete until Robin has her Sea Food Lovers Pizza from Pizza Hut. We had not made it to Pizza Hut this trip yet so today we took our guide Grace out and enjoyed a great lunch.

This afternoon we went to the various shops on the island and made some great purchases toward Maria’s 14 gifts for gotya day. Yesterday we had looked for items and today we went back to make purchases. The shops were slow and haggling was good. We made what we felt like were some good purchases today. We also had to purchase another suit case to get the extra items home, that should be fun on the train Thursday.

Tonight when we were walking back from dinner one of the shop keepers spoke to us and asked Robin “You been here before, I taylor made cloths for you” She described in detail a shirt that she made for Robin 3 years ago when we were here. Amazing as many people as they see that she remembered us. We plan to go back and visit with her tomorrow.

Tomorrow our guide will take our paperwork to the US Consulate and it everything checks out then we go Wednesday for our oath. We do not expect any issues but have to be available in the event there are questions.

One other footnote. Maria is bonding so well and loves her sisters. Today at least twice we saw her piled on top of big sister Shiyan on the floor holding her down. She is coming out of her shell and likes to play. We have also noticed her stamina getting better. She is walking faster and longer. We really watch how much she walks and try not to let her over do it but she is doing amazingly well.