Day 11: Consulate Appointment

We met our guide this morning at 7:30 in the lobby of our hotel and headed to the Consulate office here in Guangzhou to apply for Heidi's visa and to take our oath.  Once you have had your Consulante apointment, China recommends waiting about 48 hours before traveling out of the country just to ensure that they have sufficient time to get your child's visa to you.  For our appoointment we were not allowed to take any cameras or phones in with us and had to go through security before entering the building as well.  The only pictures we have were taken outside of the building.

After finishing up at the consulate office, we met back with our travel group and headed to Shamian Island to eat lunch and do any last minute shopping we had left.  Each of the other families in our ttavel group brought a sibling to China so Olivia has had fun hanging out with the other two siblings here.  While on Shamian Island, Olivia bought a fan at one fo the stores today to give to her "new" friend in our travel group.  Later, that little girl gave Olivia a bracelet she bought in a store there too that matches one she also bought herself.

This evening was the dinner cruise that was scheduled for our group.  We debated going or not going because it would mean returning a little late to the hotel and it had alreadybeen a   busy day.  We decided to go ahead and go though since tomorrow was going to be a free day for us.

The cruise was on the Pearl River in Guangzhou.  We did this same dinner cruise years ago when we were here with Olivia.  Our hotel then was right off the Pearl River and our room faced the river.  At night it was abnoxious because boats would ride up and down the river with these bright flashing lights and even with the curtains pulled lights would flash into our room all night.  The boats are still all it up and so are many of the buildings along the Pearl river--it amkes for a beautiful evening cruise.

The dinner cruise though is totally a "Chinese thing".  Around here many times when something is said in Mandarin or Cantonese, it will also be broadcast in English too like at the airport.  However, there was no English used on the dinner cruise, only a squatty potty available and the food was served buffet style--all Chinese favorites.  Brian is a more adventurous eater than I am so I stuck to the fried rice, an egg roll and somet kind of bread  on a dessert tray.  There were many meat dishes with noodles, rice, stir fry veggies but my personal policy here in China is if I don't know what the meat is I don't eat it. :)

When we finished eating, wer were able to go above and stand on the deck outside.  Heidi was not a fan of this though and cried and pointed to the stairs leading back down the majority of the time we were up on the deck.  I so wish I could share some pictures of the dinner cruise, but when we pulled our camera out of the backpack it had been bumped on at some point and the battery was completely dead.  Olivia looked in her purse to pull out her camera and then discovered that she had left it back at the hotel room.  We then even pulled my cell phone out to use it to take pictures, but it was dead too after being on most of hte day.

We have one more full day left in China!