A Day in Guangzhou

Well, I think my wife has tasted first blood in the Guangzhou market. We arrived in Guangzhou late last night (sorry no posts), and spent the morning in the infamous Polyclinic. There were lots of screaming babies, sterile walls, and exam rooms, and a lot of talking that I couldn't understand (go figure). Libi sat on my lap most of the time completely unaffected by all of the surroundings. Even her hearing test was quite comical. All this noise going on around us, and they would play a toy piano or a tambourine, and Libi would kind of looked at the nurse as if to say, "I hear it, but am not interested enough to participate in these reindeer games."

We had a bit of a scare while we were there as the doctors were quite concerned that Libi was taking seizure medication. There was a long discussion between the doctor and our travel coordinator, and then they pulled us all into the main office with three more doctors and even more discussions. Finally, without notice they let us go. There was really no debrief on what the big deal was, but it left Amy very fearful for a moment. I then spent 3 hours trying to fix Libi's return flight that was booked a day after the rest of us. I guess she has already gotten pretty independent to try that eh? Anyway, after three hours of phone calls, faxes and emails, I still don't have it fixed. Please pray for this one... minor and fixable, nonetheless it is stressful and time consuming.

After all this we decided to try our hand at bartering. Wow is that fun. It's nice to perfect those skills when you are not paying $20K on a car. Just 120 RMB for a couple shirts and "oh yeah could you throw in the Olympic hat too." We are going to the real market with the Miller's secret weapon tomorrow after church. Thanks again Chard and Melissa, we love Ann already. By the way Chard, your friend at the dragon something or other is gone. There is a young girl working there now who has only been there for two months. Very smooth though. I will continue to work to get very good price on B quality watch for you. (Manderenglish) We finished the evening with dinner at the new Italian restaurant and ice cream at the Deli.

Yesterday, we wound up our trip in Fuzhou with some bowling downstairs. The lane quit working several times, and the event was quite comical, as most everything has been the last few days. We are having so much fun with our travel mates, struggling at times to maintain our sanctification because of it. (Me and Rob that is... our wives deny they even know us, and Jacob has gotten quite an education.) Just kidding. After bowling, we walked to McDonald's and had lunch. We stopped on the way, and had Libi's picture taken with the Libi's dress maker. After the trip to Mickey D's we went to the police station to get Libi's passport, and then off to the airport. We so enjoyed our travel coordinator Catherine in Fuzhou. She was a true delight. If you ever adopt for the Fujian province you are in for a treat. She is much more educated on American slang, so you won't have such a high learning curve. Please pray for her.

By the way, for those interested... we transferred to the Victory in Guangzhou, because after all I am an accountant. It was almost half the price of the White Swan, and appears to be quite worth it so far. Very nice rooms, food and still close to everything. Most all of our travel group is staying here with us.

I have created a couple slide shows for your viewing pleasure, since you would all rather look at my daughter than read my shallow narratives. We love you all...