Getting ready to eat Portugese Cantoese food

Killing time on a dead bus

Wall of bulk pearls at one of the shops in the pearl market.

Our medical exam

It's been so strange being in another country for as long as we have without any set schedule. I've completely lost track of my days. I try to keep track of what day it is at home and once you throw in a nine hour time difference, I just can't seem to remember days and times. So at home it was conference Saturday and here it was general conference Sunday. Unfortunately we didn't watch any of it. We had a required medical appointment this morning, then more paperwork to get ready for the US consulate appointment tomorrow. I've done a lot of paperwork for this adoption and it just doesn't seem to end. After lunch, our guides took us to the pearl market. It's a wholesale market that specializes in bulk pearls, crystal, stone beads - really anything to make jewelry out of. It was a seven story building of all different jewelry supplies. Normal jewelry stores go there to buy in bulk and then mark the prices up in their own stores. I asked our guide why everybody didn't buy their jewelry here. She told me that most people don't realize that they will sell to anybody but the bulk buyers get the best price. Some people in our group dropped some serious cash on jewelry today. I wasn't one of them. What I bought was small potatoes in comparison - but I did get a bracelet. Tonight we had a group dinner at another hotel that was close by. It was a Portuguese Cantonese fusion. It was really yummy. Molly Jade was loving it. We have a funny video of her eating. If it's not too big, we'll email it and have Amanda post it for us. I forgot to mention that we flew from Zhengzhou to Guangzhou - so we went from central China to southern China. Guangzhou has a population of 13 million. This city is huge. I can't get over how big all of these cities are. Molly, unfortunately, fell asleep at the wrong time of the day and was then exhausted for the plane ride but not exhausted enough to fall asleep. It got pretty rough there towards the end of the flight. I'm not feeling optimistic about the trip home. Keep us in your prayers. The night just got better from there. The hotel was about 50 minutes away from the airport. So we loaded the luggage into van and the people (35 people) into a bus. After about 30 minutes on the road our bus broke down. Chinese drivers love to use their horns for the smallest reasons. A big dead bus full of Americans is an awesome reason to use the horn. We got dirty looks and lots of frustrated drivers. Finally the replacement bus showed up. By the time we got to the airport it was late and Molly was asleep and had been for long enough that we didn't want her waking up and then wanting to stay up but we had no luggage - which had her pajamas and her blankets. Our room was cold. It actually has air conditioning that they allow you to use. The hotel in Zhengzhou wouldn't let us turn on the AC and it was hot enough to need it. Needless to say, it wasn't our best night. The best part was that there is a McDonalds across the parking lot. I usually only get ice cream at McDonald's but that cheeseburger and strawberry mango shake was really good. And as a bonus Molly seems to adore chicken nuggets. The hotel is pretty amazing. Very nice. I saw a rolls royce in the parking lot. I've decided that high end hotels and good guides are the key to limiting culture shock. Let's face it, we are staying in 4 nd 5 star hotels. I don't live this nice in American. Almost nobody does. Guangzhou isn't as immaculately clean as Beijing or Zhengzhou but it's prettier than both of them. It's very tropical. It kind of reminds me of Cancun or Hawaii. Of the three cities, this is the one I'd pick to live in. Another plus is that scooters are outlawed and the drivers don't seem quite as focused on running pedestrians over. Both good reasons to like this city. We met a nice Chinese man on the plane ride in. He spoke very good English. He had lot's of questions for us about the adoption. He invited us to visit him at his business or even to come visit at his house. Our schedule won't let us but I think we'll be penpals. He asked us to keep him posted about Molly. Molly really liked him. He's the first person that she was tempted to leave us for so far. :-) That's all that's happening on this side of the world.M & M