Our appointment with the U.S. Consulate is all done.

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No pictures this time, we were supposed to leave our camera's and cell phones at the hotel.

That was the last thing we needed to do here in China to complete the girls paperwork. Our CCAI rep's will be going by there tomorrow to pick up the girls passports with the required visa's. Also the “brown envelope” that all adoptive parents bring back with them. We're not supposed to open it only give it to the Immigration people when we get back to the states. I'm not sure I'll be able to get much more in the backpack since the amount of papers for both girls has grown quite a bit since we arrived.

I was kind of disappointed with consulate piece. 1. They moved from Shamian island to some huge office building back into the main part of Guangzhou, not sure there is such a thing as downtown here not as large as this city is. It's the 3^rd largest city in China. Any way we were looking to getting back to the same place we did our oath for Jasmine. Oh well, nothing stays the same forever. 2. We did our oath (which is basically raise your right hand swear that the information you have presented is as accurate, to your knowledge, as possible) out in the waiting room as a group. Nothing special, nothing like the pictures you see on their web site where the ambassador is walking around talking to the couples in this fancy room. Guess that option is available at the brochure level only ;-) The good thing, it went without a hitch and fairly quickly. Although I don't think Lilly would agree since she needed to go almost as soon as we got in line and the bathroom was on the other side of where the security check point was so she just had to wait.

After we got back there was another group that had to leave at 11:00 to go back to the clinic to have the TB skin test read and they were planning to stop by the pearl market. We decided to ride along since we skipped the chance to go the first time. If you're into shopping you would love this place. It's 9 city blocks of a combo open air / indoor mall or shopping center. Jocelyn said that years ago it was just a big field of only open air, flea market kind of place but because of the pearl trade it had grown into what we saw today. They still have the best prices on pearls in the world, assuming you know which jeweler is selling the real thing and not the cheap imitation stuff. I've never seen so many sparkly things in my life. Any kind of stone, gem, pearl, etc that people make jewelry out of it was there. Not to mention all the other kinds of stores you would find in any shopping center.

After we browsed around for a while Kathy and Jocelyn happened to still be with us and wanted to know if we wanted to get lunch before we headed back. We said sure, they asked if we wanted to go to one of the usual western places, Micky D's KFC, etc there were several to choose from. We said how about they pick. They wanted to know if we were game to try Chinese fast food. We said lead on. Not sure what the name of this place was but they have different combo meals just like any fast food place. It was quick, cheap and rather tasty. Jenny, Jasmine and Lilly had one of the chicken combo's. Rose and I had the spicy beef combo. The 5 of us ate for less the 100 RMB (less then $20 US). I'm setting there thinking why didn't we find this place early on. No, there isn't one close to the hotel and it's to far to walk, I ask. I really enjoyed having lunch with not one but two of our CCAI rep's. All the other couples missed out on that treat. These ladies are really special, I can't imagine trying to do this without them holding our hands all the way. Just wish there was some way we could repay the favor.

All of the couples that went left here on a bus but the driver couldn't stay and wait for everyone to finish shopping at the pearl market. Can't say I blame him, he could be there all day waiting. Case in point, just ran down to 7-11 and one of the couples was just getting back, it's 6:30 PM here now. So, any way we each had to get back via cab. It was very affordable, cost us 21 RMB to get back here but I if I was a cat I would have lost at least 3 of my 9 lives from riding in the front seat. Wowzzer! That was scarey, you just have to experience it to believe it.

So we're almost done, glad to be at this point. Love visiting this country, experiencing new foods, meeting people, seeing the sites but you can only take leaving in a hotel room for just so long before you want to get home. Rose was asking Kathy today when do we get to leave, guess she's getting tried of living in a hotel room also.

Jenny has decided to finish the trip with a cold and looks like I'm starting to sneeze to so guess I'm next. Could be a cold or it might just be the air quality finally getting to us. Who knows.

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