China – Day 10: December 2014
Today was a free day in Guangzhou. Since we are the only family traveling with Holt (our adoption agency) this week (they had 26 families last week, apparently other people weren’t keen on coming home on Christmas day like we are) we hooked up with some families from another adoption agency and hitched a ride with them to Shamain Island for some touristy shopping.
Shamain Island is famous in the Chinese adoption community because the US consulate used to be located on the island. The consulate was across the street from the White Swan hotel where all of the adoptive families used to stay. Several years ago the consulate moved off of Shamain island and then three years ago the White Swan closed for renovations (it still has not reopened). When the White Swan closed, most of the agencies started housing adoptive families at the China Hotel (where we are staying). Since the closure of the White Swan, apparently only a few of the shops have survived; however, the island has a nice park and many people go there to take pictures, including Chinese couples taking engagement/wedding pictures and professional models on photo shoots (we saw several of each). It’s a small but very pretty island and between the types of trees and the architecture (was developed by the British), it looks a lot like Savannah or Charleston.
We bought a few gifts for people and some t-shirts for the kids. There was a park where we saw people playing a strange version of hackey-sack, except the “sack” was a combination hackey-sack and badminton shuttlecock. There was also a kids playground that Han enjoyed. He saw some kids blowing bubbles probably for the first time and got very excited. There were some people practicing/performing/? music that was very loud and, well, let’s just say not our taste. We don’t mean to be insensitive to local culture, because we think we would have enjoyed it had they been skilled musicians, but, as Jeff noted, “I liked all of the songs that they were playing at the same time.”
We also ate lunch at Lucy’s, which is an American-style restaurant that caters to adoptive families. It was really nice to spend time with other adoptive families and the group from Bethany International was really nice to let us tag along with them for the day.
After we got back from lunch we came back to the room for a nap. When Han woke up we went to the outdoor playground at the hotel so that Han could play outside for awhile. It was a really nice day, so we were all happy to be able to spend the majority of the day outdoors.
We met up with a few other families from the Bethany group and went to dinner at a local restaurant. The guide for the Bethany group was nice enough to order dinner for all of us. We had some really spectacular green beans along with some noodles, Chinese broccoli, and some meat dishes that Jeff enjoyed, but Leslie cannot remember. We got lots of looks from the locals who were clearly intrigued by the table full of 4 white American families with 4 Chinese kids.
Han didn’t eat much for dinner, so when we got back to the hotel we went upstairs to the executive lounge to see if he would eat anything there. He did manage to down a dessert, but didn’t really eat much else. After that we went back to the room for bathtime and then bed. Overall, it was a pretty uneventful day.
At this point we are just ready to go home. Guangzhou is nice and the hotel is lovely, but we are homesick and really miss the girls. We also realized that we have become accustomed to not having to closely monitor the girls 24 hours a day; they are old enough to play downstairs or in their room without constant supervision. Jumping back into the constant vigilance required for an active 2-year-old is exhausting; both physically and emotionally. It is quite different from having a newborn and then having the years to watch them develop and get accustomed to the amount of activity along the way. With adoption you skip the adjustment part and jump right to the crazy active stage (at least we did) and didn’t have the opportunity to ease into it. We are not complaining, it is just a much different experience and one we hadn’t really contemplated in too much depth prior to this trip. It is quite amazing, and we consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to take these two different paths to parenthood. They are both so very different, and it is impossible to prepare for either.
Sorry for the short and uneventful blog post of the day. We just really didn’t do a whole lot today besides shop for chopsticks (or chapsticks as Brynn insists they are called) and t-shirts. Our routine for the past few weeks has pretty much been this: wake up; have buffet breakfast; FaceTime with the girls and GiGi and Grandpa; morning activity (official adoption-related appointments or venturing out somewhere); lunch; nap; short activity; dinner; get ready for bed. It’s nice but after a while there’s not a whole lot new to talk about. (It will also be tough to get back to a “normal†routine where we don’t have a buffet breakfast and a long afternoon nap!)
Tomorrow we are going to the pearl market and then will probably go hang out at the park for awhile. There’s another nice park on the other side of the hotel that we haven’t seen yet — apparently they have a lot of lakes, so we may check that out too. We have our appointment at the US consulate for Han’s visa on Tuesday, which should only take the morning. I forsee a lot of park time in our future.
See pictures and videos below or in our China: Day 10 SmugMug gallery.
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