Market walk

As I mentioned, today was a shopping day. We walked from our hotel to the wholesale jade and pearl market and a shopping mall. Along the way we walked through one of the oldest markets in China. Jophy explained many things along the way – the symbolism of certain gates, the family history of some of the markets, and what some of the goods are used for. For instance, some vendors were selling tiger claws, dried monkey, horns, and other bones. Those are apparently used for certain medicines. There wasn’t as much livestock in this area, mostly mushrooms, dried snakeskins, and other dried goods.

We did some shopping, ate the ritual lunch at Pizza Hut, and went back to our hotel to prepare for the consulate appointment. The consulate has moved… it used to be just a walk from the hotel. Now it is a fairly long bus ride to a new consulate building. All of us are in a big waiting room and there were about 60 children and their families waiting to be sworn in. This is the final step before leaving the country and so many people plan on going right from the consulate to the airport (counting on everything going right). The adoption unit of the Guangzhou U.S. Consulate is the busiest in the world. Last year over 7900 adoptions were processed through this consulate! (They do all of the Chinese adoptions.) It made me wonder what it is going to be like for this generation of Chinese children that have been adopted into the U.S.

Anyway, we made it through our appointment, took the oath, and went to do a bit more shopping and find dinner. The dinner part was a challenge. Valentine’s Day is a huge deal here… I mean huge. Everyone goes out to eat dinner and so every restaurant was packed. We finally settled on Lucy’s, a place close to the hotel, and even that took well over an hour to get served.

We are enjoying our last few days here and will be sorry to leave. Carli continues to do great about going down, which still flabbergasts me a bit. I have high hopes for the plane ride, but remain a bit guarded.