|
July 21 (pre-Amy)
July 21, 22
July 23
July 23, 24, 25
July 26
July 26, 27
July 28, 29, 30
July 31
August 1
|
Ni hao
It's noon on Tuesday, which means it's 11pm CT on Monday for you.
Guangzhou has been interesting...read on and you'll see what I
mean.
We had the medical exam and Visa pictures
taken as soon as we arrived on Saturday. It was an hour flight and
we got here at 9 am, so you know that we left early. Amy did fabulously
on her first flight. She played with the crazy lady behind us, drank
her bottle and sucked on her pacifier. The Visa photo was a snap
and then we walked to the medical exam. It was beyond any Houston
summer for humidity and heat. I can't describe how icky hot it was.
And the medical exam was chaotic, to say the least. There was no
order or lines to follow - you just kind of went where you hadn't
been before. Amy weighs 7.1 kG, which is 15.9 lbs. She's also 70
cm, but I don't know the conversion to that. She screamed bloody
murder on the physical exam part - does she have a heart beat, 5
digits on each limb, is she a girl? - and for the ear, nose and
throat exam - they have a super-loud rattle that scared the heck
out of her.
We
finally got to check into the White Swan, which is fabulous. Marble
floors, real king size beds, honest-to-God air conditioning. We
unpacked and I did the finishing paperwork - the American Visa stuff.
It was pouring, torrential rain, so we stayed in. We ordered Danny's
Bagels (lasagne and a sandwich, chicken noodle soup for Amy) and
crashed for the evening. Here are Beth and Amy waiting for check-in. Notice the beautiful tapestry in the background:
On Sunday, we went to a local park - Yuntai Garden, a part of Baiyun
Hill Scenic Region and watched a bird show. It was wickedly hot
again, so I stayed with Amy under the shade.
We then went to the Chen Clan museum and saw some artwork. Amy
got her picture taken by people and she was in good spirits.
Then the shopping began. There's a whole lot of streets here catering
to adoptive parents, so we continued to make China green. We ate
Japanese food at the hotel restaurant and Mark had some interesting
sushi - he'll never try it again, looking at the expression on his
face. I think he'll stick with the plain old normal stuff. Amy didn't
nap all day, so she was a bit cranky and finally went to sleep.
On Monday, we hung out in the hotel room to wait for Helen to call
if there were any Visa problems. We took the pictures below while
we were waiting. There weren't any problems, so we could leave.
We figured out what we still needed to buy and headed out to the
stores that we needed to hit. Unfortunately, Amy had different plans
and vomited in the store. And on her. And on Mommy. We came home
and cleaned up and napped. After two hours and a couple more ounces
of formula, she threw up again. We had to hurry and make it to our
consulate appointment, so we cleaned up, took lots of spit rags
and left. We sat in the consulate office and got approved for Visas.
We went home and Amy crashed again and slept for a long time. We
ordered Danny's Bagels again and then went to sleep. We tried a
couple of ounces of Electrolytes and that stayed down. We woke up
around 1:30 and Amy had a fever, so we took her to the hotel clinic.
She had a fever of 101 and got Tylenol, vitamins, an antibiotic
and what looks to be cod liver oil. She took the medicine, some
electrolytes and went back to sleep. We called our pediatrician
at home (since it was business hours) and got the ok for the course
of treatment.
We have had an ok day today. The vomiting has stopped and Amy is
eating a couple of spoonfuls of rice cereal. We're going to try
formula about 24 hours after the last episode, so maybe around 3
pm this afternoon. We're all exhausted, but Amy seems to be on the
mend.
We
had the red couch pictures today with the other travel group and
I hope to email a picture later this afternoon. Helen is planning
on coming back to Michael's (where I am right now) and I'll pass
on the picture she took. We're being quiet and calm today, and we're
singly going out to finish up our shopping. We'll go over our final
paperwork today (the Visas) and repack all the stuff for our flight
home tomorrow.
We can't wait to get home...I'll try to email the pictures later.
If not, when I email you next, Amy'll be home in the States and
an official US citizen!
Beth, Mark & Amy |
