Elliott becomes a United States citizen!

It's true!  This baby of ours is now RED, WHITE and BLUE like the rest of us!

Our day started VERY early.  6:00am to be exact.  Even Mr. Earlybird himself had to be woken up.  I took some time to call home while the boys went down for a large breakfast.  I got ready and made it down for just a couple cups of tea and some fancy cheese on crackers and some lychees and dragonfruit.  I think I have eaten my own weight in lychees already this week.  (Yen, you got my hooked on those!)   :o)
Jack met us in the lobby at 7:30 and we were on our way. 

Elliott does not like his seat belt.  He has never had to wear one.  Kids here don't have to.  But we insist.  This is his please-help-me look.

The new business district of Guangzhou.  This area did not exist seven years ago.  It's growing that fast.

The Guangzhou TV tower.  An extremely tall and very recognizable building in the GZ skyline.



Across this river (see bridge in the background) is Er Sam Island.  It's a very historic area, where only the wealthy live.  The most expensive apartment just sold there last week for 150 million RMB (yuan).  Wow!  And the women you see carrying the umbrella are holding it to keep the sun away, not the rain.  Women here do not prize tans; they cherish white and clear skin.  Most women wear long sleeves, wide brimmed hats, or unbrellas to keep their skin out of the sun.

Very cool looking bridge crossing the Pearl River, and some very new and very expensive executive apartments.

Thsi photo shows how 'stacked' freeways are here.  There is not square inch to spare.  In an effort to alleviate traffic woes and conserve space, the freeway was elevated throughout town, much like the subway is up high in Chicago.  In some areas, like this one, they are actually layered with other roads passing through.  Unless you've seen it, you just can't imagine the traffic on busy roads in China.



The drive to the US Consulate took us about 45 minutes, not because it was so far away but because the morning traffic here is unbelievable.  Elliott must have had a nervous stomach because he blew out a diaper in the van on the way there.  It smelled awful, and I didn't know enough Chinese to tell our nice driver that "I'm sorry for stinking up your van".  We finally got there and got his diaper changed, and headed up to the third floor of the building.  To look at it from the outside, it looks like any other office building in a strip mall of office buildings.  You'd never guess.  But on the third floor there was a line of other American families all waiting to pass through the metal detector.  No cameras are allowed, so I left that all behind.  No pictures to show you.  Sorry!

When we got through, which only took a minute, we took another escalator up one more floor to the room for "U.S.A. Adoptions".  Passport checks - all clear.  We were armed with a bundle of paperwork and one more clean diaper.  That's it.  So we go to wait in a small little room with three bulletproof windows.  This place looks a little like a bank, but with some random kids' toys in the back of the room.  There were about 10 other families, so think of 20 adults and 10 children.  At 8:45 we were addressed by a man on the other side of the window with a scratchy sounding microphone who explained the process to us.  Then we all stood up and raised our right hands with guidance from a woman behind the glass to say the Oath of Citizenship in honor of our children.  In the middle of the oath, Elliott had another code brown.  A full blown run-down-the-hall-and-call-for-some-backup code.  Now they are calling families up to the window to review paperwork and wouldn't you know it, "B" for Beresford is first runner up!  So we approached the window with our cute little bundle of joy and prayed that it would only take a minute.  Thank God, we were done in only five minutes, and I sent Matt in to the bathroom with the little man.  It took him almost ten minutes to do a rebuild.  After that, we were free to go and go we did.  We had Jack drop us off on Shamian Island to do some last-minute shopping for gifts, and for lunch.  Elliott is a real champion when it comes to having patience with me when I was trying to pick out the perfect gifts for everyone (Elliott included!) but like all kids he had his time limit.  We stopped at Starbucks for another carmel frappuchino and a banana.  We walked all around the island, just taking our time and enjoying the scenery one last time.

The lobby at the White Swan Hotel, which was for years the go-to hotel for adoptive families, is still open even though the rooms are closed for rennovations.  It's absolutey amazing.  That's a two-story waterfall with a teak pagoda on top, and a huge koi pond with plants and rock walls below.  Just beautiful!

Here fishy-fishy-fishy!

Awesome view of the Pearl River from the atrium of the White Swan.

Pure cuteness!

Elliott is tired of smiling!  Xiao yi xiao!

There is a legendary red couch at the White Swan that all adopted families migrated to for group photos, usually with the kids dressed in traditional Chinese outfits.  It was sort of a rite of passage.  We couldn't find "the" red couch today, so we picked out "a" red couch and took photos.  Silly, I know.  :o)

Cool jade pagoda on the balcony.

This four-foot vase was layered with butterfly wings.  It looked amazing, like nothing I have ever seen, and glittered with different colors in the light.  But it made me a little sad at the same time.

Elliott scored a sucker from Dad.  This is BEFORE he painted his face.

I'm probably going to get in trouble for photographing this, but I had to.  These government-sponsored cameras are everywhere.  You can't turn and pick your nose without being caught on camera.  But it doesn't stop some people from indulging in gross and unsocial behavior.

Like this: peeing and pooping on the sidewalk.  This child is wearing "split pants".  You (and everyone else) can clearly see his butt.  It's how many of the local Chinese potty train their kids.  They just squat and go wherever, even in front of the door leading into a store, so everyone else walks in it.  I have seen kids all week peeing in the storm drains on he Ping and Di Shi Fu Streets.  I have also seen dozens and dozens of adults doing it on a nearby bush or tree.  In full view of a million other people.  I'm sorry.  It's nasty.  I am going to boil my shoes for an hour when I get home.  I can't stand to think of what's layered on the bottom.  I saw a mother put her child in a WalMart seat in Harbin with the split pants on, too.  His private part was sitting directly on the cart seat.  Ugh.  No more shopping carts.  There aren't many things here that I just can't stand, but this is one of them.  I'm trying to be culturally sensitive, but 'Microbiology 210' back in college won't let me do that.



We stopped at Subway on Shamian Island (finally found it!) for lunch.  Matt and I are past the point where we regret not eating the local food and having the local experience.  Cantonese food is too adventurous and too laden with animal products to try to navigate on our own.  Not to mention the people here speak Cantonese, not traditional Chinese Mandarin.  So my Chinese does me little good here.  Subway was good.  It hit the right spot. 

The Subway self-serve pop machine.  It's easy to tell that the choices on the left are Pepsi and Sprite.  But the choices on the right are not what you think they are.  :o)

Back to the hotel, nap time for Elliott and a little pool time afterwards.

I'm trying to teach Elliott the fine art of soaking up the sun, but he can't sit still for more than sixty seconds.  I got a fantastic pedicure last night after Matt putt Elliott to bed, just outside the hotel.  The best part?  It only cost me 50 yuan (less than $10) for 45 minutes of luxury.  I hardly ever get pedicures, though I do love them.

We had our laundry done while we were here.  We had another package arrive today.  For roughly $35 they not only washed and dried, pressed and folded our laundry (for all three of us!) but they delivered it, too!

All clean!  In tidy little plastic packages like these.  :o)

After the pool visit, we went back out to Di Shi Fu Road in search of the Pearl Market we've heard of but have never seen.

We entered a rather unassuming set of glass doors,and went down an escalator and through a hall, and this is what we found!  Who knew?!?!

You are looking at five stories of retail shopping! These are almost all clothing stores.

Through an outdoor atrium, and into another tower, we are now in an identical five-story shopping mall of nothing but jewelry.  You can get anything you want here.  There are stores that specialize in certain stones, and they are usually grouped together.  For instance, the amethyst stores are on one floor, the gold and silver are on another, the turquoise is in another section, amber in another section, oyster shell in a separate row, and pearls are on the whole first floor.  We walked around for a while, just in awe.  This place is not primarily a storefront retail area, but it's an online paradise.  There weren't many walk-in customers browsing around when we were there.  Most of these shops sell in bulk, to retailers in China and all over the world. Most work off of online websites.  They do want your business, but dont' want to haggle too much because they can find buyers online, but there are literally hundreds of vendors to choose from.  Some shops didn't even have a storefront; they had dozens of workers sitting at tables stringing together jewelry.  (Mom Hardy, you would have passed right out by now....  You've never seen anything like this before!)  I didn't see highly prized stuff like diamonds or rubies and sapphires, but a lot of the other precious stones.  And tons and tons of pearls!

This guy was in front of one of the shops running a pearl-drilling machine to make holes to string them.  It stunk to high heaven!

This photo isn't the clearest, and I apologise, but I had to include it. Do you see the packages in white, in the shop behind Matt and Elliott?  The lined all of the walls in many of the pearl shops, row after row, shelf after shelf, on all of the walls.  They are all big bags full of pearls yet to be sorted and strung.  I just can't imagine!

See how long this hall is?  It's at least 200 yards long.  These side-halls are everywhere.  This jewelry mall was unbelievably huge.  We walked around for over an hour, and still only saw about a fifth of it.  And all of it at a fraction of the prices we find in the United States.

We stumbled upon a Papa John's on Di Shi Fu Street on our way out of the Pearl Market.  It is pretty well hidden up a secret elevator on the third floor of a building behind a crowded arcade.  If only I had found this on day #1!

"Someone who really knows me well bought me this shirt!  I've been trying to tell my parents all week that they're not really the ones in charge and they're not listening.  Maybe now they'll understand."

Our table at Papa John's came with a pretty nice view of Di Shi Fu Street at night!  The crowds definitely multiply at night.  By the time we finished our meal, it was double this.

Ooooh!  Stinker!

Elliott was testing his limits at dinner today by letting his chewed up food roll out of his mouth and onto the table.  He knew it was unacceptable, but did it again and again to see what we would do.  We knew he loved the food, though, he ate every last crumb and even tried licking the butter garlic sauce bowl at the end.

This is the arcade that we passed through to get to Papa John's Pizza.  It was so loud my head was practically vibrating, and filled with cigarette smoke.  (Smoking indoors is not only legal here, it's perfectly acceptable.  People occasionally smoke in the hallways in our nice hotel.  I don't like it at all.)  But Elliott was in hog heaven.  This little boy loves to push buttons - literally!  He's always typing on the phone, the calculator, the TV remote, and the light switches.  What better place to exercise that curiosity?  So we bought Panda Bear some tokens and set him loose.  He was one happy little dude!

The only way to top having buttons to press was handing him a hammer.

He had such good fun, but we had to cut it short after about 10 minutes.  The smoke and the loud music were overstimulating him.

This was the advertisement on the elevator door.  That's a fully formed chicken with her head still intact and boiled, and a baby pig that met the same fate.  Yet another reminder why I don't try the local Cantonese food without an interpreter.  And I'm going home with a new committment to continuing my vegetarian lifestyle.

 Just outside of the bulding we were in on Di Shi Fu Street was a koi pond in the middle of the walkway.  There was a vendor selling baby bottles full of milk, and for a few yuan you could literally bottle feed the koi.  There were half a dozen kids trying it.  One kid kept alternating between taking hits off the bottle for himself, and then sharing it with the fish.

Fun to watch, but Elliott wanted no part of it.  He's so freaked out by fish that he screams when we get near the koi pond at the White Swan Hotel.

The lights and the excitement on the pedestrian streets at night is exhilarating.  This city doesn't sleep!  I am going to miss it.

We went down a side street to find our favorite little tea shop from earlier this week.  We wanted to buy some tea to take home (I'm never going to look at tea the same way!) and to purchase a couple of small gifts. 

Those are little serving size packages to tea bundled together and hung from the ceiling!  In these tiny little shops, no space is ever wasted!

This was the tea shop employee on duty for the night who helped us out.  What a nice guy he was.  He spoke Cantonese and I only know a little bit of Mandarin, so we couldn't communicate with spoken words at all, but somehow we managed to get a taste of several of the popular teas, and an introduction on how to use my new tea set.  and he was so patient with Elliott, who by this time was getting bored of waiting.

Our next stop was at a children's shoe shop, where we got Elliott a pair of shoes for next year, with little blinking lights on the bottom.  Guess how much?  Just $8.60 US dollars!  These shoes would have cost us at least $25 back in the USA.

The last stop of the night was the Women and Children's Store.  It's kind of like a little department store on Di Shi Fu Road, but it's very narrow and four stories tall.  It's quite pricey, too.  Think "J.C. Penny" and you'll be very close.  We needed a few more diapers and some treats for the train ride tomorrow to keep him busy.  It was quite the shopping experience!

There are way more employees there than they need.  There was like a six to one ratio to customers, with the six being the employees and the one being the customer.  You can't walk more than fifteen feet without a store attendant in a pink blouse coming to help you out, only none of them spoke English so only a couple offered to help us.  We were fine with that.  We found the baby care department, got the right size diaper pack that we needed, and started to head toward the escalator to find the snack department on the next floor.  We were stopped by an attendant who, in Cantonese, was trying to tell us that she had to write up our order.  She took the diapers from us, and wrote down the product information on a receipt and set them on the counter, then showed us with her hand pointed toward the escalator that we were free to go now.  A bit confused, we continued.  Up at the snack area one floor up, we got some sweet Chinese treats for Madeline to bring to her classroom next week and a couple of snack crakers for the train ride, and headed toward the escalator again to unite the crackers with the diapers that were being held hostage on the second floor.  Again, we were stopped, and a receipt was filled out.  With a round of bad acting skills, we told them that we were done shopping, so they escorted us to another cash register in a different location, and called for our two orders to be delivered down.  (OKay, so I'm totally confused now.  What just happened?)  They unite our order, put some red stamps on our paperwork, pull out another receipt from the cash register, compare numbers, a stamp here, a stamp there, these two get stapled together now....  I'm just watching this and wondering how I lost control.  We finally made it out of the store but still don't understand why it takes six people to cash out an order for diapers and hard candy at a department store.  And we still don't understand why so many stores are overstaffed, especially when the overhead for employees is such a big deal in America.  Jack says that these low-paying jobs make up a lot of the local employment sector, and that most of them don't even meet up with the American minimum wage.  The thought process behind that is "I can hire two employees to serve my customers and give them decent wages, or I can hire ten, cut that pay rate down by four-fifths, and have excellent customer service."  So the more employees, I guess, often means the less wages earned.  It explains why there are so many people living in the poor and low-middle class here in China, which is also a problem in the United States, but for different reasons.

I have had some really thought-provoking conversations with several people here about jobs, religion, government systems, family structure, schools and education, medical practice and healthcare, and culture. I'm not going to blog about it all, but have really enjoyed getting to know more about China than I can learn by being an American living in America, and so much more by diving in and seeking out what 'real China' is instead of just settling for the happy-photo-tourist version.  There are things I love, things that I disagree with, and things that totally confuse me about China.  But one thing is for sure: this has been an awesome trip, and I can't wait to come back when the kids are older and show it to them in person.  If anyone reading this blog is contemplating a trip to China, do it!  This is one of the most fascinating and beautiful countries in the world.  I am excited to keep as much of this Chinese culture in Elliott's life as we are able to, throughout his life.  Yes, he is an American on paper, but he was created in China.  His life started in China.  That can never be taken away from him, and should never be forgotten.  Through this blog, and the one thousand additional. photos that I have taken, I hope to document as much of this trip and this experience and this culture as I can. 

As I think about packing up to go home, I am left with a conflicted heart.  On one hand, the excitement Matt and I have to scoop our daughters up at the airport and hug them for hours is overwhelming.  They have had a really fun two weeks back home, but I miss them so much my arms ache.  I want my creature comforts at home, where everything looks and smells and feels familiar.  I miss my farm and all of the animals that I love so much.  I could go on and on.  Leaving it all behind makes me realize how much it all means to me.  But on the other hand, going back to my familiar world means Elliott is giving up the last few things that are familiar to him: the language (although I aim to keep speaking to him in what little Mandarin I know), the familiar food (my Chinese cooking is a joke compared to the good food we've had here, especially in his hometown of Harbin), the familiar looking people, and the security of being the only focus of his Mama and Baba.  When I take him to the pediatrician next week for his initial check-up, our physician can't tell him in Mandarin what it is he is doing or looking at.  He has to rely on those bonds of trust that are just now developing between him and his parents.  It's going to be scary for him all over again, and it's going to be a very long time before we get to bring him back.  He'll be a much different person then.  That makes me sad.  Very sad.

Adoption is built around loss.  It takes a minute to wrap your head around that.  Adoption happens because he lost his birth parents, for reasons we will probably never know.  International adoption means he'll lose the future he once had growing up here in China.  His legacy is changing.  Adoption means that his birth parents lost the ability to parent him.  What would they say if they saw him today?  Did they give him up because they wanted to or because they HAD to?  I've learned that raising a child here in China is often a very very very difficult thing to do, both socially and economically.  And adoption, for our family, means we lost those first few years of Elliott's life.  Strange pieces of the puzzle, like why he is terrified of bathing or what that little scar on his left arm in from, we will never know.  Those stages of development that formed when he was little were done without us, like trust and affection.  We have to back ourselves up a little bit and do things differently with Elliott than we did with Madeline and Charlotte at age two and a half.  So as we travel home and as we celebrate our sweet little boy joining our family, I am feeling both overjoyed and a little sad.  And I am so glad I have a few weeks to sort through all of these emotions together as a family before I have to start back at work.  We are definitely going to need it.

Well, that's enough of the 'heavy' stuff for now.  Time to call it a day, and head to bed!  Tomorrow we are going to have a nice, slow day.  We have all day to pack up, and our guide will meet us at 2:00 in the lobby to bring us to the consulate again to pick up our final documents, then on to the train station we go.  We have a two hour train ride from GZ to Hong Kong, then overnight in Hong Kong, and on to an 11:50am flight to Chicago, USA!