February 25, 2016

Late this afternoon, we'd be catching our plane to Guangzhou and had a free morning, so guess what?  Yep, back to West Lake.  Really, there's so much to see and so much pressure to see it and capture it all because leaving feels so important and final.  I felt like I was trying to experience and remember for a  child who was losing all of this and would need me to help her remember.  I felt that because it was true.  

First, we stopped by a place that we'd found the day before. The Chinese Zodiac is a big deal in China and Luna is Year of the Ox. We'd found a place that sold combs made out of ox (White Buffalo) horn so I bought her one and had her name, in Mandarin, burned into it.  

We walked through and around West Lake one more time.

Hēibái jiěmèi!  look like they may be planning some sort of chaos.

The girls made friends with the tiniest members of the crowd.

         And, shared a píngguǒ (apple) with each other.

The Chinese tourists made good use of West Lake, as well. This sight reminded me of the brides that we saw (on Q-Boo's adoption trip) around the Forbidden City in Beijing taking pictures for their wedding announcements.

This morning we actually left the West Lake perimeter and headed into the city around it. We found steamed buns for lunch.

Hēibái jiěmèi! continued their antics.

 

For two seconds, her face said, "Stop taking my picture."

There was no language barrier, there.

After lunch we walked and we walked, we saw a public school with kids at recess.

We walked until the girls got hungry again, we picked up a snack, and kept walking.

This was a snack option, but not this.

This. This was the snack that they wanted and loved.

I love this picture, because it's ridiculous that we are in China, eating McDonald's fries, but also because you can see the reflections of the three of us adults in the window behind the girls. 

Then, aha, this is why the guys were walking us all over Hangzhou.

The Hangzhou Tesla dealership.  I should have paid more attention (K-Man would buy and bring home one of these things a few years later) and I should have been more impressed. It was interesting, it was unusual, it was high tech and cutting edge.

I was not. 

I was exhausted and cranky and feeling stressed about the upcoming airplane trip.   I felt like I’d been on a city-wide tour of  Chinese bathrooms. The truthful answer to “Have you ever used a squatty potty?” is “I have watched my daughter us a TON of them.”  We'd still have a long walk back to the hotel after we left the Tesla dealership and I'd agree with my newly adopted daughter when she'd request to be carried and then ask John, about all the walking,   “Whose idea was that?” 

We'd get back to the hotel and have a couple of hours of rest before we'd head to the airport. At the airport, Luna was all nerves and amazement.  She’d never been to an airport, she’d never seen a moving sidewalk, it was all big and overwhelming.  We got to the gate, and she and K-man crouched down to watch the fēijī through the windows.  It wasn't long before she perked up and started smiling, again.

Because they always were.  I don't think it is possible to fly within China and not be "delayed."

But finally...

I am worn out and so glad to be in Guangzhou. This is the part where it gets easier. We'd be in a part of the country where, due to the prescence of the American Consulate, they are used to dealing with Americans.  We'd be with other adoptive parents. We were on the last leg of the trip. We'd go, the next day, to Visa Medicals, where they'd make sure that Luna was healthy before she left the country and then we'd  wait on her American Visa for her Chinese passport. After that we could finally go home to the States. We'd done this before, on Q-Boo's adoption trip, we'd even stayed in the same hotel and China Hotel was one of the nicest hotels I'd ever stayed in, anywhere. This next part we already knew how to do.  I'm pretty sure that my thoughts, at this moment, circled around some version of "Oh, China Hotel, how I love thee!"