July 15 – Guangzhou
Emma did not sleep well last night – had a lot on her mind she said. We had our breakfast in the hotel, and met Cordelia at 9:30 for a trip to a Six Banyan Temple, a Buddhist Temple, and then some shopping at the Provincial Arts and Crafts store in town. Unfortunately Randy was up all night last night sick, so he is unable to join us for this trip.

Cordelia warns us about beggars when we approach the temple. She recommends that we do not make eye contact if we are not going to give them money. She also recommends that if we give money, we give it from our pockets, not our wallets. Cordelia is very protective of us and gives us lots of tips for survival in the city, but Guangzhou feels no less safe than any other typical city in China or the U.S., and I think she is trying to be as careful as possible because those who adopt come from all walks of America, including folks who are not so comfortable in the city. At any rate, the scene is much less aggressive than Tiananmen Square, and we enter the temple without any trouble.

Cordelia provides us with a history of the temple area and gives us a little lesson on recognizing some Chinese writing as we examine the carved entablatures surrounding the area. Even better, she leads us to the main temple, where we all receive a blessing from a monk. It’s hard to describe in words how powerful this experience felt. We all knelt before the alter, and closed our eyes, and listened to the incredibly beautiful singing chant during the blessing. It’s a traditional blessing for good luck, and we were kneeling in front of three huge bronze Buddha statues – one for past life, one for present life, and one for future life. Something about this experience was very emotional for me, and all of the kids were as quiet as can be during the blessing – all you could hear was the chanting. It’s as if the girls were moved to silence by the power of the moment.

After the blessing we walked the grounds. Emma met two older monks sitting in lotus position and gave them postcards from Seattle. They loved her eyebrows and agreed to be photographed with her. Then they provided her with a blessing for good luck.

I ran into a Bucknell classmate here – we knew each others names, but were not direct friends while in school. Her husband was fully decked out in Bucknell Class of 92 garb, which was a dead giveaway. She and her husband are on their second adoption – a common theme we see among westerners we have met.

After the temple we head to a traditional crafts store. Emma bought a fan (like you see in a dance performance), and we bought some beautiful paintings as well as some gifts (details of which will not be provided to the viewing audience, but consider yourselves warned for your next birthday or Christmas!). The back to the hotel for lunch and a rest. Zoe inhales an adult portion of noodles, as well as some prunes, and then spends some tummy time with me on the floor just chatting and cooing. We are warming up nicely.

We also met up with John today, the third Faith family of this group. He is on his 5th adoption from China, and his 7th kid. His new daughter is 7 years old, with cerebral palsy, and was days away from permanently being put into an orphanage because she was made available three times and nobody would take her. So John stepped in and will bring her home with him to Houston this week to join his large family.

Anyway, Cordelia agrees to take John and me to the electronics shopping area. Randy would have joined, but is still too sick. So, the three adults and John’s girl head out in a cab to this area, about 20 minutes from the hotel.

This is like a large mall with booths everywhere and everyone wanting to sell me an MP4 player. I wander a bit while John buys some games for his kids, and browse the camera accessories. Turns out the starting offer for things like lenses and accessories is similar to prices we would pay in the U.S., but you can bargain lower than that. Unfortunately I did not have enough cash on hand to purchase the flash unit or lens I was considering, so I didn’t even venture to bargain, but it was amazing to see how quickly the price started to drop when I expressed little interest in buying.

I bump into John and he waves me over like a kid in a candy store. Then he grabs the clerk, and tells me to follow them. We wander some halls, go to the back of another store, through several locked doors and into a locked closet room where there are hundreds of current DVDs for movies that have been barely released in theaters. This is a movie nut’s dream, and each DVD is only 10 Yuan (about $1.25 U.S.). I felt like we were straight out of a movie scene ourselves with this little back room adventure, and it was exciting just to experience how this whole thing works when you know the game.

We finish up here, and step out to find a cab and notice that a rain storm has passed through. It’s still humid though – we are told today is 38.8 C (102 F) degrees in the city.

Back at the hotel Zoe has still not napped and dinner is approaching. I put her in the front pack, and set out with some Cheerios to pick up our laundry. This is our first venture together, and a test to see if she will freak out. Turns out that Cheerios must be pretty comforting because for the entire journey she made not a peep – did not seem to care at all that it was just she and me, and Karen was nowhere to be seen.

We gathered with the rest of our group for dinner. Headed to the White Swan to check out the dinner buffet but the prices were ridiculous, so back to Lucy’s, where as you will recall, the beer is cold and there are family-friendly food choices for all. The back to the hotel for a Zoe bath (she took a huge lick of liquid Aveno baby soap from her hands and gave me a totally unfazed look in response), and a special nighttime swim with Emma in the rooftop pool. Again the water was warm, the air was warm, and this time she and I could enjoy the tremendous view and the nighttime city lights from our perch in the water. That was a wonderful end to this day. And Zoe crashed hard in bed with nary a complaint she was so tired.