Time to leave Talhia's home province

It is 5:30am on Thursday and we will be leaving for Beijing at 8am.

The last few days have gone by quickly, with each day focused on more adoption paperwork. On Tuesday we signed the official adoption papers and had to have an official picture taken of the 3 of us for the adoption letter. Of course this was the one time on Tuesday morning that Talhia was crying, and big time. This will be a great picture to show her as she grows up.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store and picked up a few things. Most things had an English name on them and I could figure out what was formula and what was beer.

We got back to the hotel late Tuesday afternoon and at this time preparation for the Asian games in Guangzhou. Now every time we enter our hotel we must go through a metal detector, be wanded down, and all our bags go through an x-ray machine. Earlier in the day in our hotel we had walked past a bunch of military and police with bomb sniffing dogs going through the hotel. My understanding is that there are a bunch of dignitaries for the games staying here. This is also why we are having to leave on Thursday and not Friday. With the games there is no room.

Back to Tuesday… for the last part of the afternoon we went shopping to a close by highrise discount mall. Guangzhou is a factory city with a large amount of manufacturing of things so you can find very good prices on many toys/cloths/etc. It is quite the adventure trying to cross the street. All we have been told is follow the locals! Apparently, the biggest travel health claims for foreigners is getting hit by a car or bike.

We toured around the mall an bought a few small things and then the group of us (3 of the families) decided to have a cultural experience and we had supper at the McDonalds. Very similar to back home. It is quite interesting when you walk up to the counter if you are a foreigner, they pull out a large laminated menu with pictures and you just point to the double cheeseburger value meal and type of drink. Worked well, but my Coke Zero turned into a Sprite.

After dinner the entire group went on a boat tour on the river. This lasted about 2 hours and we got to see many interesting building. They also have many lit up with designs.

Wednesday night was a bit more restless for Talhia than Tuesday. Again after about a ½ of sleeping she woke up screaming and it took Chris about ½ hour to settle her down. Then she was more restless during the night.

Wednesday we would have to go to the police station in the afternoon to get our final adoption papers. So in the morning our entire group went to a shopping island. Here we bought too much (in my opinion). Talhia got a number of Chinese dresses, Chris and I each got a Chinese top (When I was trying to say no to this, I was informed I had no choice and that at the very least I would be wearing it at Chinese New Years. I am now suspecting that there are a number of things that I have not been told about and will be doing…Especially since Chris is reminding me that I am no longer number 2 on the priority list (actually I think I         was below this already with the cats/dogs/alpacas) and have moved down another rung. At least she is fine with not being number 1 anymore. We also bought some jade, squeaky shoes (not for me), and a few other items for Talhia to remember her home province.

The trip to the police station was uneventful but did take a while because we were behind a large group of families (the same group we were behind on Monday and Tuesday). After that we had time for one quick last shopping excursion to the local discount mall. Here we managed to find a few more wooden toys and dress/tops for Talhia and Chris. And the dinners have kept getting better, since we were so tired and had to pack for this AM we settled for a cup of noodles, a bag of chips and a beer.

It is too bad that the Asian games start tomorrow. If we could have stayed till Friday we would have had a chance to take the 2 hour drive today and visit Talhia's orphanage. This will have to wait for some time in the future.

Chris is just waking up and I need to help with final packing (since I got the easy job last night of playing with Talhia, I better do a bit, but I can't actually do too much because I won't put the right thing in the right suitcase ((remember down another rung))).

Later today in Beijing we will meet up with all the families. Our group will grow from the 5 families up to the 17.

That is all for now.  Hey I thought it was Christine's idea to do all this blogging

Todd & Chris