How many more days in China?

While we are now starting to feel more like a regular old family, and have settled in at the China Hotel, we are READY to just go home, and all the same it is strange to imagine being home, back in our regular lives with Ben now too.

We have 5 days left.  Our Consulate Appointment is Thursday, then on Friday we will take a van to Hong Kong where we will stay overnight there in order to get on an early flight to Chicago on Saturday morning.  Because of the time difference, we will arrive home just 15 minutes later after we took off. :)

This morning we had our medical appointments at the consulate.  Four of the families had the medical appointment, the other 3 just had their TB tests read- they had their appointments the day before. Because Ben is under 2, we do not need a TB test.  The medical offices were all individuals immigrating to the U.S., but there was a special section for adoptive families.  The looked in his mouth, ears, nose, weighed (21 lbs) and measured him, listening to his heart and lungs (all clear!) and then just looked at his body, spine, checked his legs and arms out, etc.  He was great, he did not cry, but he did NOT smile. The medical office were new, clean and the doctors were very nice (Yes, they were Chinese- was wondering too.)

After our medical appointment Tom and I decided to head over to Shamian Island for a look around.  Previously, the U.S. Consulate was on the island, and the island was awash in adoptive families.  The hotel families stayed at, The White Swan, is closed for renovations for another year.  At this hotel, it was a tradition that adoptive families take pictures of their children on "the red couch" and the hotel handed out "Going Home Barbies" in the massive infant girl Chinese adoption wave:

But the U.S. Consulate moved off the island, and the hotel closed for renovations (rumor has it they are trying to re-brand themselves and get away from being the adoptive family hotel).  Many shops on the island have since closed, and it was a bit quiet, but we still saw plenty of people enjoying the beautiful walkways, statues and gardens. 

Shamian Island belonged to France and the U.K. in the 18th and early 19th century, and when you step out of your taxi, it is like you are not in China at all:

There are these beautiful statues everywhere, including this one where there is a row of children following a violinist   I have seen many adoptive families take a photo with heir child standing in the the little space in front of the last child.  The plan was to have Ben stand there with me holding his arms, but he was a little tired and was having NONE of it. Oh well!!

There was a LOT of fashion photography going on - these are not brides, it was a fashion shoot:

It was just so beautiful, even on an overcast sky.

Best of all, we got this beautiful picture!!

We could not find the Catholic Church and Ben began to melt down, so we headed back but might try to get there again on Wednesday.  We had heard of the great shopping on the island, but CCAI had taken care to take us only to the government run shops prior to this.  Our guide that 99.9% of the items on the island- jade, porcelain, etc. were imitation. After going to the other stores, it was pretty obvious to me for the most part the difference.  Our guide said that the jade is the hardest to tell the quality to the untrained eye, so he especially cautioned us against buying anything for there.  He said even the locals only go to the government shops.  There no inexpensive trinkets, fake Burberry, etc. we wanted, so the shopping portion of the island was also a bust for us. 

Once again, our nap time was off course due to the day's adventures, so even at 8:00p.m., Ben was not completely exhausted, and putting him down was pretty humorous.  After he drank his bottle and and had snuggled for a bit, he sat up and began clapping.  When Tom and I continued to be silent and pretend to be asleep, he grabbed his little stuffed bear and became to move it around and sing to us in adorable high-pitch little babble.  When this didn't work, he began grunting and doing his "brave" pose, knowing this always makes us laugh. It was so darn comical.  Finally I scooped him up and rocked him to sleep- success!!