Day 10

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen?  Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen?  Sorry to say, not anymore….

Day 9

Today was a free day in that we get to have a “tourist” day.  I really don’t want to do this because I am not here to tour the land or have fun, I am here to get this kid and get home.  The problem is that you have to wait several days in between these appointments so there is no choice.  We decided to go to the Safari Park, aka the zoo.  This is somewhat of a real safari park in that you drive around half of the park and can get close to the animals.  I have to say it was kind of neat and interesting to see these different animals.  Although the animals were different too, getting close to some of them made it more adventurous.  Kind of like being on a safari.  Go figure.  Made it through this place without much incident.

We get back from the safari park in the afternoon and still have time so we then decided to do what they told us we should not do; go off the island.  It is like the wet paint sign, you have to touch it if it says wet paint.  We had to get out of there.  It is hard to explain, but there are different markets for a lot of different things.  We happened to go to the spice market.  It goes for blocks and everyone sells the same things.  The spice smell was a bit overwhelming.   The dried seahorses and lizards on the stick were there as I was hoping.  There were spices from who knows what and you do who knows what with them.  All I know is that I will stick to salt and hot sauce.

We went one step further and discovered a huge shopping plaza a few blocks further.  This makes the malls in the US look like kiddie playgrounds.  There are literally hundreds and hundreds of stores.  We later found that about 60,000 people per day go here.  I can believe it because it was crazy.  The pictures can say more than words, and besides it is easier to say that and I can stop writing now….

Day 8

We arrived in Disney in the evening.  The reason I say Disney is when we arrived at the hotel, which is located on an “island,” it looks like an older town located on Main St USA.  It was built by the English one hundred or so years ago and the place has been restored.  This part does not feel like China.  The hotel room is small but very modern.  It is a change from the “five” star hotel that we stayed at in Jinan.  Since it is late, we did a quick stroll down several streets and decided to call it a night.  We had to get up early enough Saturday morning to go to the medical clinic so that we can get the kid a final check out exam and a TB test. 

 I am renaming this place from Shamian Island, to “Adoptive Island” since most all the tourists like us are adopting kids.  There is a second name I will call this place and that is “Wedding Photo Island.”  On a strange side note, there have been at least one hundred different couples that had their pictures taken here since we have been here.  I have learned from watching the movie the Incredibles that when the bad guy says that when “everyone is a super (hero), then no one will be.”  I hate to tell them this, but if everyone gets their special wedding pictures taken here, it is not special anymore.  I would think that the muddy waters of the Pearl River would have more meaning at this point.

Once we left the clinic I noticed what appeared to be thick dark smoke coming above some of the buildings, so my first thought is one of the smokestacks from a nearby factory.  Then as I further examined, I realized there were sirens in the distance and traffic stopped all around.  After convincing Renee to walk faster, we finally came upon a strange scene.  There was one of the buildings at the market on fire, and hundreds of onlookers staring at the burning building literally a few feet away from it as the flames were trying to be extinguished.  Once again, be thankful for our fire departments across the US.  This place just burned and burned and the hoses were barely making a difference in stopping the flames.  There were apartments attached to the building so you would think an evacuation would be in order.  Silly me, this just became the hit ticket item with box seats looking down at the rising smoke.  Who would have thought that so many people would be entertained by this, but it was free.

Once the fire started to die out, we kept walking around the island.  It is surrounded by a moat so you are isolated from direct traffic.  When the lights go down the streets are still well lit and you are in an area where it seems nice and safe to walk around.  There are also many shops here where everyone wants you to come in and look.  It is fairly reasonably priced compared to what we would pay in the US.  Not much else happened this day, but otherwise fairly straightforward, for China….

Samuel had his medical check for the US Embassy early in the morning.  All of the American families come through Guangzhou for their Embassy appointments after their week in the capital of their child's province.  It is really nice to be able to meet other families, and there were several at the medical center.

The medical center was absolutely packed.  There was wall to wall people, literally in the building.  Some were American families and some were Chinese citizens..  The scene was bordering on chaos.  There were so many little ones just screaming in fear.  The process was like a factory assembly line.  The child sees the ENT for a hearing test.  Then they head to the general dr. who strips them down and checks them from head to toe.  No hand washing or gloves between patients Jim noticed.  Then on to the eye doctor and the grand finale... is a tb test with a needle.

Samuel did pretty well.  He got very quiet and was holding onto me for dear life and was just stroking my hair.  The general physician called in another doctor to listen to his heart, and they both said he still has a murmur, which isn't a surprise to us.  By the time Samuel was at the eye doctor he had pretty much checked out emotionally.  He wasn't crying, but he would not participate in the exam.  We know he can see well as he picks out his favorite little cartoon character in stores, but I think he was just beyond scared.

After the appointment we went back to our hotel to have a meeting and to go over our paperwork.

When that was over we stepped out to explore the island and walked upon a massive cloud of black  smoke.  Jim knew right away that something was on fire.  We went up the road and sure enough there was a huge fire in what looked like a shopping center.  The hole center was engulfed and flames and black smoke were sky high.  The fire dept was there, but their hoses were so weak you just knew it would be hours before there was any effect.  Thankfully, it seemed nobody was hurt, but we were shocked to see the people from the adjacent building standing on their balconies watching instead of evacuating. It all was handled so differently than it would have been handled in America, but it did get out out, and we didn't hear of any injuries, thank you Lord.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the island and just enjoying the beautiful weather and sweet Samuel.  He is such a fun and easy going little guy and has brought us so much love and laughter.  We can't wait to introduce him to the kids.  They are going to just love him to pieces.

Not such a small world after all~

We were quite ready to leave Jinan and head to Guangzhou.  We were blessed by our time in Jinan, but every step is a step closer to home.

Missy and Mr. Liu took us to pick up Samuel's passport.  It took several hours, and while we never did quite figure out what the hold up was Missy and Mr. Liu seemed quite concerned during the whole thing, I know God heard your prayers, or we would still be in the passport office.

We zipped off to the airport and with Missy's help navigated the terminal.  When we went to pass through security it came up that our luggage was flagged, so we had to go back to the counters to get a stamp to say we were not smuggling anything, and then back into the security line which was crazy long.  Every flight you take in China they process your passport, and take your picture, so going through security takes awhile.

Samuel seemed excited about going on the plane.  Jim kept telling me all the things that Air China was supposed to be doing, but wasn't.  I settled in in my broken seat and pretended I couldn't hear him.  Ha!

By God's grace we landed safely in Guangzhou.  Samuel did great on the flight, but his poor little ears hurt on landing.  He doesn't know how to chew gum, so there was little we could do.

Guangzhou is another HUGE city.  Beijing has a population of 19 million and Jinan has a population of 6 million.  Guangzhou has a population of 9 million.  It's amazing.

We are staying on Shamian Island.  It used to be an English and then French Colony.  It's very pretty here and the air is cleaner..... as is our hotel.  The temperature here is the same as Florida.  Yippee!

We have a full couple of days and then head to the Embassy.  Thank you for praying!!

Day 7?

Is it Day 7?  Things are blurred together right now.  Once Thursday ended we had the final piece to take care of in the trip in Jinan, the passport.  That morning I went outside briefly and it was the first day since the “fog” rolled back in.  The original smell that was there back in the beginning of the week was now in full force.  All I can say to describe it would be like breathing a poisoned gas.   The same type of smell is in the water.  If you lived here all of your life you would not think anything of it.  It still seems strange that people are not looking up and saying that there is this strange fog that comes over out city all of the time. 

The longer that I have been here the more I can tell that there is a strange mix of people walking and driving around like everything is ok.  For the most part for them, it is.  They just live their lives, go from here to there, and all seems to be business as usual.  In this area where there are literally millions of people in a ten mile radius, there is somewhat of an order to the chaos.  There is no good side of town, there is no bad side.  It is all kind of mixed up.

When we see the people in this area, we cannot stop and talk to them due to a language barrier.  Most people can say hello, or bye bye, but that is about it.  No more than we can say hi and bye in Chinese.  I have not yet demanded that they press one for English.  I say all of that about the people because they live an existence.  I cannot say how deep the meaning to their lives is, but from my perspective they are oppressed without knowing it.  They cannot go online to web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.  I am sure it is the government’s way of keeping the people under wraps so that they can control what they want them to know.  We are not pushing the guides too much as whether they think this is normal.  Buddhism is one of the primary religions here; however, there seem to be few people who practice that.  I was told before I came here that most people are atheists and for the most part I can see that.  There is nothing to believe in other than your existence and what you are experiencing right now.  This is perfect for the government since they do not have to worry about controlling or regulating what the people think or do.

So, back to the passport.  We did finally get the passport around 2 pm.   One thing I have learned about these other foreign countries is that there is no time schedule.  If I was running late and wanted to speak to a supervisor as to why there is a delay and I need answers now, they would likely call the cops to take me out.  You just have to remain calm and hope and pray they all do what they are supposed to do, even if it is in their time table.

Our plane was leaving at 4:30 to go to our next city named Guangzhou.    The airport was a little more intimidating since very few things are now in English.  We get through security with little incident and the plane took off and landed on time.  I was most concerned about the landing since the Chinese airline thing really concerned me.  The one thing that made me feel better is that I realized that when I got on the plane I looked at the placard on the entry door that said Boeing, Wichita Kansas.  USA, that’s what I am talking about.   The seats on the plane were kinda flimsy, but those must have been made in China.

We arrived and once again the guide picked us right out of the crowd within seconds.  How do they do that?  We catch a ride to the hotel that night.  We were pretty wiped out since we were up during the time we have been sleeping here so we did the quick tour and went to bed.  That wrapped up this day….