Note: This was written in 1997 as trip report for APC. I don't think it was ever posted on APC.
GETTING TO CHENGDU - We went over in a group of 11 families, 1/2 from BAAS and 1/2 from a different agency in Northern California (name escapes me). We all used the same facilitator, Xaioquing Cai. We left the United States June 5 with 8 of the 11 families traveling with us. Due to the number of people trying to get into Hong Kong for the hand over to China, we were unable to get a direct flight. Instead we flew a United 747 to Narita (Tokyo) had a 4 hour layover then caught another United 747 from Narita to Hong Kongs Kai Tak airport. We were met at the airport by a tour bus arranged by our travel agent and were taken to the Ramada Kowloon. Since it was fairly late when we got in (about 10:00 PM local time), the tour bus operator gave us a few quick survival tips, signed us up for a Bus tour of Hong Kong the next day and checked us into the Ramada.
By the time we got to our room, we had been traveling, from the time we left our home in Castro Valley, 25 hours. The 747 was full both legs of the trip. We were a bit exhausted.
Hong Kong - We spent 3 days and nights in a Ramada Inn in Kowloon Hong Kong. The first morning was spent in a very interesting Bus tour of the colony. The tour operator described the myriad of shopping opportunities, the value of the local Real Estate and gave us a lot of tips on where to go/not go, where to eat/not eat and basically how to stay out of trouble. During the tour, the tour operator took us to Aberdeen harbour, where we paid a little extra for a sampan tour of the anchorage. I highly recommend this to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be in Hong Kong as a tourist. In general, the bus tour was well worth the money we paid for it.
The next day was pretty much ours and my wife and I struck out on our own. We had prowled the shopping streets of Kowloon and were pretty much tired of them, so following the directions given by the tour bus operator, we caught a Ferry to "Central" (Hong Kong island), and then caught a ferry to the island of Chang Sha. (tip: always travel first class on the ferry)
Chang Sha is good bit away from Hong Kong and boasts a total of 3 motor vehicles on the island - two fire trucks and an ambulance. The rest of the population travels via bicycle. It is a fishing/resort community and many young couples from Hong Kong pop over for a little privacy and romance. It was good to get away from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong and to get a little fresh air. We were fortunate enough to be in Chang Sha while the dragon boats were preparing for the Dragon Boat festival. (Dragon boats are long thin canoe like boats that are manned by gangs of paddlers and some guy beating a drum - I believe they race them). Chang Sha was the high point of our trip to Hong Kong.
On Sunday, June 8, the tour operator collected our passports, luggage, $100.00HK (about $14.00 US) for the departure tax, and hauled us back to Kai Tak airport. There we thanked him warmly for his assistance. ( I highly recommend some sort of tour service in Hong Kong) and we boarded an DragonAir Airbus 300 for Chengdu. I heaved a heavy sigh of relief as they boarded our flight - I had learned two days before that Cathay Pacific, parent of DragonAir, had grounded its fleet of Airbusses due to a fuel pump problem. I had not shared this information with the group, who were wondering why I kept asking the tour operator about train service to Chengdu. Cathay and Airbus apparently found the problem and the fleet was again flying.
IN RETROSPECT - I would skip Hong Kong. You certainly need a couple of days in China before you get your child, just to acclimate. But Hong Kong has very few redeeming features. If you don't like or want to shop Hong Kong is not for you. I thought the panhandlers in San Francisco were bad, but wait until you are accosted by wave after wave of Indian tailors trying to sew you a shirt. We were lucky to get into the Ramada, but the room we had was *tiny*. My advice to future Chengdu travelers is to go on through to Chengdu. The hotel in Chengdu was much better than the Hong Kong hotel and I would have enjoyed exploring the city of my daughters birth much more than Hong Kong. On the other hand Hong Kong eased our transition into China quite a bit. Hong Kong is western enough, we got along, but is Chinese enough that we were somewhat (but not totally) prepared for what we found in China.
CHENGDU - It was about a 2 hour flight from Hong Kong to Chengdu. Unfortunately China was completely overcast so we couldn’t see any of the countryside during the flight. The service on the Dragonair flight was superb - the best I have ever experienced. We descended into Chengdu airport and landed without incident.
Chengdu airport is a fairly busy airport and serves as a hub for one of the internal Chinese airlines. It has modern jetways into the terminal, but for some reason chooses not to use them. Instead they park the aircraft out on the flatland and a small herd of attendants directs passengers down the stairs and into the international terminal. It is actually pretty interesting to watch the arrival of an airplane. Shortly before arrival 10 or so attendants form up on flatland and stand at attention waiting for the flight. Once the airplane arrives, the attendants fan out to their various positions - some of which were to form a line directing passengers into the appropriate door of the terminal.
At the international terminal, our passports were checked, visas stamped and we were given a "departure" card, which was jokingly referred to as the "Get out of China card". After getting the visa stamped, we collected our baggage, read the long list of proscribed articles (don’t take fresh fruits or vegetables into China) and headed out.
We had a brief delay on the exit from customs. One of our 11 families was hand carrying a FAX machine that was to be presented to the Orphanage by the Northern California families. The customs official wanted to collect a duty on the machine. After a while, we convinced them it was a donation and to waive the duty fee.
Our facilitator had arranged for our group to be led by the China Women of Travel agency during our stay in China. Once we cleared customs we met out national guide, who anglicized her name to "Marilyn" and our Chengdu local guide, "Carolyn".
The airport opened in kind of square, with the airport as one side of the square and billboards and building on the other sides. I stood there for a while taking in the sights, sounds, smells (nothing unpleasant) and karma of Red China and almost lost the group. I was enthralled.
The guides had chartered a bus, and a luggage truck. We gave our non-carryon luggage to the luggage driver and boarded the bus. The bus was immaculate, the bus driver was sane (an important and often missing characteristic of bus drivers in Asia). The tour guide led us across the parking lot where we saw the first of the fascinating little "Chengdu" (Thats the name on the nameplate) cars and trucks - I instantly wanted to take one home.
We boarded the bus and the National Guide introduced herself and her partner and told us the babies would be at the hotel about 7:00 pm. She also told us that the hotel was air conditioned, but we should turn off the air conditioner as soon as we got there, since these were chinese babies and not used to the cold. This amused me us bit, since we had heard of that chinese believe the children should be bundled up on even the warmest days. We then settled back and listend to the local guide talk a little about the area.
[COMMENT: I will admit that with the prospect of becoming parents, the impending end of what had become a seemingly neverending process and the overwhelming enormity of the Peoples Republic of China, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the local guide. I was glued to window, looking at the rickshaws, the incredible on-going contruction in Chengdu, and the conditions in which the people worked and lived. I ignored the video camera, the local guide, and focused on my own thoughts and perceptions]
The bus took us to the front door of the Yinhe
Dynasty hotel. After the somewhat shocking conditions in thecountryside and what
we had seen of the city so far, this hotel seemed out of place. The Yinhe
Dynasty would compare favorably with any Grand hotel in the west. Any worrys we
had about the hotel evaporated at the site of the 3 story brick "water wall"
that graced the outside of hotel. We entered the hotel lobby with its plush
carpets and attentive staff (and lots of them - I never saw the doorman not
present, any less than 4 uniformed bell hops at the concierge desk, or less than
6 people behind the front desk. The management of the St. Francis in San
Francisco should spent the night at this hotel). Our national guide checked us
in and handed us the keys and told us to go on up and our bags would be up
shortly.
The rooms for our group were on the 12th and 13th story of this Oasis. The room had twin beds
(bummer) but between the beds was the fascinating metal crib. We fixated on the
crib for awhile, then explored the rest of the room. The room was large and
airy, had excellent air conditioning, and a western style bathroom. The little
sticker over the sink that read "Non-Drinkable Water" reminded us that we were
in China. I noted with some trepidation the flashlight supplied in each room.
The electricity in China is not particularly reliable. Our bags showed up
quickly and we tipped the Bellhop 10 RMB (about a $1.20 - exactly what the
national guide told us to tip).
[IN RETROSPECT - I would recommend that future travelers convert about $20.00 US to RMB (the Chinese currency) at the currency changers at the International Airports (Hong Kong or a stateside airport). This gives you enough of the local currency to tip where you need to tip before you are safely enscounced in your hotel and you avoid the outragous rates of the airport money changers. After you are in your hotel, you can change money as needed with the hotel cashier. (The hotel charges an almost trivial fee for the service). Advice on tipping: Always tip what the guides tell you to tip. The Chinese aren’t used to tips and Americans grossly overtip in China.]
We designated part of the dresser as the "Baby Staging Area", set it up with diapers, changes of clothes, formula bottles, the Texas Medical Kit, some raisens, cheerios and so on. When all of that was done we still had several hours before the babies showed up so rather than sit around and fret, we took a walk to see what we could see.
Since the primary objective of the trip was child acquisition, we decided not to get lost and limited our wanderings to the hotel block. We converted some money at the Yinhe and set off.
[A quick note on Chinese money. Chinese money is referred to as RMB. It is mostly paper but it appears coins are making a comeback. The bills are clearly marked with arabic numbers and the unit of money in western characters. The Yuan is the basic unit of money. The Jiao is 1/10 of a Yuan. The exchange rate when we were in China was about 8.21 Yuan to a US Dollar. We were told we could get a slightly better rate on the street, but we were also warned that we were taking our chances. We stuck to the hotel. The concept of "Foreign Exchange Credit" which old China hands will rmemeber seems thankfully to have died out. When a westerner says "I spent 10 RMB" what they are really saying is that they spent 10 Yuan]
Once out of the hotel we learned very quickly to watch our step - the sidewalks were uneven and rough, but remarkably clean. We found out that in Chengdu, each shopping street specializes in something. The street around the hotel was a shoe street. We noted with some amusement that across the street from the hotel was the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken we had ever seen. We later learned that the KFC was considered a big treat in China and children would often have their birthday parties there. We purchased some bottled water from a street vendor (in Hong Kong, we had gotten into the habit of purchasing and carrying one or two small bottles of distilled water us at all times - a worthwhile and recommended habit) for about 3 RMB.
It was when we were buying the water that we ran into our first instance of the "Chinese stare". In Chengdu, westerners are still a bit of a novelty. We found that whenever we stopped to look in a window, a semi-circle of Chinese would form and they would stare at us. We had been warned this might happen, but it was a bit disconcerting. It is not considered impolite to stare in China, so we would just smile, say "Nee How" (hello) and move on.
On our walk, we noted two grocery stores, one normal, one high end (I think that catered to the Japanese residents of Chengdu), a department store, a childrens clothing store (very important), a shopping mall and numerous shoe stores - this was afterall, shoe street.
We got back to the hotel, joined some members of our party for dinner (excellent western style meal in the hotel) and went upstairs to await the arrival of the babies.
We were told to be in our rooms at 7:00 PM. Shortly before 7:00 we were told there would be about ½ hour delay. (Having been in charge of 1 child for a month we can appreciate a ½ hour delay involving *11* babies) .
Wth growing anticipation we all opened our doors so we could keep an eye on the bank of elevators on our floor. At about 7:30 frantic word was passed that the babies were here. We whipped out the video camera and got our only video the handover process: A large group of adults coming off the elevators with the kids in their arms.
Almost instantly our telephone rang and it - our national guide calling us to her room. With dry throats we walked around the corner to the national guides room.
There we were greeted by a woman, we later found out was the assistant director Chengdu Childrens Welfare Institute. In her arms screaming lustily, was our daughter. We stared at her a bit. Touched her. Talked to her.
Then it was suggested that we take her. Oh yeah….
We had been told that the foster parents would be available for interviews at the child handover. However the reason the assistant director was holding our child was that her foster mother was too upset to accompany her to the hotel. We were disappointed (a situation we would later remedy) but the disappointment was overshadowed by our excitement.
We got her back to the room still crying, stripped her out of her orphanage clothes (a very servicable sleeper and t-shirt) changed her diaper and examined her very closely. We found absolutely nothing wrong with her. She was clean, well fed, rash free and obviously had a good set of lungs.
From our journal: "8-June-1997 - 2100L - Chengdu - You are now sleeping in your mothers arm - you were handed to us about an hour ago. You cried continously for about 45 minutes, even though we changed you and tried to get you to eat. Finally we laid you down in your Mothers arms and you went to sleep. We are discussing your name. After great debate we’ve settled on either Erica (I prefer Erika) or Elizabeth…2200L We have moved you to the metal crib between our beds. You snore, kid ."
[A NOTE ON CHENGDU ORPHANS - In Chengdu children that are put up for adoption are placed in a foster care situation. In our group of 11 all but one was in a foster home. The children, without exception, were clean, healthy, well fed, obviously been well cared for and our perception was, well loved. The children in our group ranged from 7 months to 3 ½ years. We had one special needs family (they were too young) and the special need was "bowed legs". In our particular case, our daughter was 11 months.]
The next morning, our daughter woke up a bit fussy, but settled down when food was given to her. We found that food was a great comfort to her and her name was almost "Hoover", since she sucked down everything that was set in front of her. Cheerios were a big hit - every kid in our group *loved* cheerios - it should be on everyones packing list.
Monday morning we got up and by the time we got to breakfast, we had given her a first name, Erika.
Breakfast that first morning was a trip. We met up with some other families and they placed us in one corner of the restaurant at Yinhe.
Monday was "Notary Day". Since there was 11 families in our group they decided to bring the Notary to us. One by one, we were called in to the National Guides room where money was collected (all crisp new-style $100.00 bills). We were asked if Erika was acceptable to us (are you kidding: yes!!) and would we care for her (yes) and one we weren’t quite ready for: How much to you earn in a year? For the life of me, I drew a blank, and my dear wife asked: "Do you mean W-2 wages or actual income?", which earned her a blank stare from the notary and the interpreter and peals of laughter from me later. I finally mentally multiplied our paychecks by 26 and came out with a number. I didn’t tell the Notary that was net and not gross, but they seemed ok with the numbers. We signed the Chinese adoption decree and placed a red thumbprint next to our signatures. Erikas foot was then inked and stamped on the adoption decree. The Notary then declared us to be Erikas parents. We took a quick picture with the Notary and then headed down the hall, back to our rooms.
We both looked at one another and said "…wow…".
Which about sums it up.
Monday we also got the opportunity to interview the foster mother. Erikas foster mother was an orphanage worker and a grandmother who cared for Erika along with her husband. She did not accompany the babies Sunday night because she was a) too upset or b) there was no room in the van. We heard both stories and chose to believe a. Through some judicious diplomatic work by Erikas new mother, we arrange to have her come to the hotel with an interpreter.
We got to talk to her, via the interpretor for about 45 minutes. We asked the foster mother for permission to video tape the proceedings and captured the entire thing.
As soon as she walked in the door, Erika gave her a great
big smile (one we have learned to appreciate) and immediately went to her. The
foster mother took her happily played with her and cooed at her for a 
few minutes. She held Erika for the entire interview. They
were obviously very attached to one another. The fost mother laughed at the
picture of her and Erika the orphanage had sent to the us - we had it blown up,
digitized, enhanced and had multiple copies with us.
The rest of Monday was pretty much up to us. We went shopping and lesurely argued about Erikas middle name. After a while we bought some things and settled on a middle name for Erika. We sealed her new name with a 3 way handshake: Erika Lianne Pendleton.
Later that afternoon, we went down to the lobby and a group of Americans were standing around trying desperately not to stare at our babies. It turns out, it was a travel group from the East Coast that was also adopting from Chengdu. We introduced ourselves, passed Erika around and wished them luck - they were to receive their children later that evening.
We persuaded the local guide to take us out to dinner at a local "tofu" place. We couldn’t roust a cab, so we elected to walk about a mile and a half through Chengdu to this restaurant. This was not a tourist restaurant and there was no English to be found. The local guide ordered for us and we had a virtual banquet of various vegtable dishes, a whole fish and rice. It was more food than the 3 of us could eat and final bill came out to 52 yuan or about 6 dollars. At bit of warning: Sichuan food is a bit spicey (according to local guide the ladies are like the food: spicey). If you’re going to eat the local cusine, you should probably eat some hot mexican or chinese food as a training exercise.
The walk itself was memorable with many interesting sites. The local guide took us down a subway to cross the street once and we were astonished to see a whole shopping center down there. We would explore this shopping center a little better a few days later
Tuesday the guides arranged for a trip to the Chengdu Zoo. They loaded us onto a bus and we drove through the streets of Chengdu to the Zoo. The joke amongst the tour guides was that they were taking all the people from California to see the California Pandas. Some years ago, the zoo in Chengdu lent a pair of pandas to the San Francisco Zoo. During the time those pandas were in residence, every weekend hundreds (thousands) of people would line up outside the SF zoo, pay the money for the privledge of staring at a pair of sleeping pandas for 5 minutes. I know: I was one of them. When the Pandas were returned to China, they were returned to the Chengdu zoo.
The Chengdu Zoo was clean, well kept and the animals were obviously well cared for. Americans who are used to the current "natural environment" displays popular in American zoos (we are proud members of the East Bay (Oakland) Zoological society) might find the zoo a bit primitive. The animals were in cages (albeit clean and spacious ones). The Chengdu Zoo also seems to be the focal point of the local "Save the Pandas" effort. There were several opportunities to purchase panda t-shirts where the proceeds were to be used in the preservation effort. The local citizens seem to be justifiably proud of their zoo.
There were lots of pandas. There were also a lot of other animals. The local citizenry we met seem to be older people entertaining grand kids. They were very friendly and very interested in us. At a couple of points we seem to be getting more attention than the animals.
One of the feature of the zoo was a rather large goldfish pond. While we were there two local kids, probably about 7 or 8, took off their pants, jumped in and went fishing. This didn’t seem to faze the zoo employees so we just watched them. One of our group is an elementary school teacher who caught the event on video and added "Don’t try this at home kids" for the benefit of her students.
On the way back from the zoo, we stopped for lunch at a fancy Chengdu restaurant where we all learned that it was important to keep the crockery away from small children. We deliberately over-tipped when we left.
During the rest of the time in Chengdu, the guides did a great job of keeping us from getting bored. They arranged trips to parks, tea houses, silk embrodiery factorys (Chengdu is on the silk road). They also made sure we all got back on the bus and didn’t commit any gross improprietys.
But all of the trips were purely optional. If you didn’t want to go that was fine. Since Erika seemed to thrive on the travel, we went on all the trips. We still had plenty of time to explore the area round the hotel and go shopping.
Shopping was done in a couple of different places. Near the hotel were a number of department stores including this multi-story facility called "The Peoples Department Store". We found the best prices in the Peoples Department Store and purchased an umbrella stroller to relieve our tired arms.
One of the most interesting places though was the underground shopping city.
The entrances to these things looked like a subway entrance. Erikas new father being a bit a train nut had planned to go down and take a look but in an expedition with one of the guides had taken us across the street via the tunnel and we saw that rather than a metro style subway, it was a long stretch of retail shops.
We finally screwed up enough courage (plus we were looking for baby shoes) we went down into the shopping city. It suddenly dawned on us what this was.
During the cold war the Chinese had bragged about the number of people they could hide in bomb shelters. Thats what this shopping city was: an artifact of the cold war converted to peacetime usage. We confirmed that (at least in our minds) when we found a set of heavy doors that could be used to seal the tunnel off.
These enormous tunnels were longer than we could see (I would guess at least 3 km). It was hard to judge how wide it was since there were stores on either wall with a fairly wide walkway down the middle. At strategic intervals there were chairs for the weary shoppers and at even deeper levels it appeared to have high end restaurants (closed when we were there) and bars. We only got about a ½ mile into the tunnels before we decided we needed to pop out.
The last bit of officialdom was the checking of the final papers. We were given official copies of the adoption decree, the abandonment certificate, the Chinese birth certificate and her Peoples Republic of China passport. It was there we learned Erika was turned in by the "Zhanqian Local Police Station, the North Station of Railway, Chengdu City" as a foundling. (If anyone happens to have any pictures of that railway station, I would be most pleased to pay for copies – we did not get to the railway station). Once the documents were checked (ours were perfect) and corrected, we were essentially through with the Chinese phase of the adoption process.
We then packed our bags for the American phase of the adoption process.
At the announced time bellhops came and collected our luggage (we tipped 20 yuan) and we all assembled in the lobby of Yinhe. We paid our incidential expenses with a credit card. This was room service, laundry fees etc. The room itself was paid in advance by China Women of Travel as part of our tour fee. The incidentials were about $230.00 for 5 days.
Funny story – One member of our group had endorsed his credit cards "See ID". He signed his credit card reciept and whipped out his passport, but the Chinese refused to accept the charge because the signatures were different. They would not accept the explaination that it was for fraud prevention. They finally accepted his charges when he signed the charge slips as "See ID". We refered to him as Mr. See ID for the rest of the trip.
With our luggage loaded into a luggage van, we boarded the Bus for our last trip through Chengdu. At this point in the trip we had a very warm spot in our hearts for city even with its pollution and traffic and were a bit sad at leaving. Future APC travelers to Chengdu have to keep an eye out and tell us when the "Panda City" amusement park opens.
At Chengdu airport our national and local guides took us through security [Important safety tip: Some bathrooms in Chengdu airport charge – always have some chinese money available]. There we bid a fond farewell to our local guide (with a significant group tip) and with our National Guide entered the waiting area of the airport.
The waiting area of the Chengdu Airport was fairly nice and had what was purported to be a western style coffee shop. They also had a interesting setup for drinking water: They had a "sterilization cabient" that used ultraviolet lights to sterilize a collection of cups that could be used to drink water from a stainless steel barrel. Fortunately we had brought enough bottled water that we did not need to avail ourselves of that facility.
After a while we were loaded onto a China Southern Airways Boeing 757 for the flight to Canton.
Unfortunatly Canton was socked in and we sat on the airplane, on the runway for about a hour. We finally got airborne and flew without incident to Canton.
CANTON - We think Canton is Chinese for "rain". That’s about what it did the entire time we were in Canton. We landed in a downpour. That lasted for about 4 days.
When we landed, our National Guide went ahead to locate the Canton local guide. We claimed our checked baggage, put it on luggage carts then followed the National Guide through the downpour to the waiting luggage van and bus. Once we were on the bus, we took off through streets of Canton. The local guide who we would see on the trip to White Swan and once again on the final trip back to the airport was a budding Jackie Chan and told bad jokes the entire trip.
The White Swan. What can we say about the White Swan that hasn’t already been said? Other hotels exist in Canton for the simple reason is that not everybody can stay at the White Swan. The White Swan should be first choice for any adopting parent and any other hotel a poor second choice.
The White Swan is known in Canton as the "Baby Hotel". Its staff knows what parents need and the in-hotel stores stock baby supplies. It has the additional advantage of being right next door to the American Consulate.
The first official business in Canton was getting pictures made of our children. The National Guide had us all get umbrellas from the Conceirge desk at the Swan and led us about ½ a block away to Passport photoshop. This was just like one in the United States, except of course the signs were in Chinese.
There the Guide collected our money and we got pictures made of our children. The Guide explained that we wouldn’t get to keep any of them, that the American Consulate needed them all. We were quite disappointed since we thought ours was a particularly good picture. However we did get one: it was used in Erikas green card. The next stop was the health clinic. This was a good bit away, probably a bit too far for some members of our group. There the babies got the prefunctary medical exam we’ve all heard about. As it turns out we were only one of (we think) three groups that converged upon the clinic at the same time. The Chinese ran us through in efficent assembly line fashion and we were quickly through that part of the process.
A note on the infamous tongue depressors: Some people got their bowels in an uproar over the fact the Chinese reuse tongue depressors. That is correct. They do. They re-use sterilized stainless steel tongue depressors that I remember from my pediatricians office. This makes sense when you consider that China has no shortage of inexpensive labour. It is cheaper for them to sterilize the stainless steel tongue depressors rather than use disposables. In the United States it is cheaper to throw them away than to pay someone to sterilize them. If you want to see something wastefull, take a look in the sharps box in a major US hospital. You should take your disposable tongue depressor to China if that makes you feel better.
After that, we returned to the Hotel. This was done on a Saturday and our appointments at the American Consulate weren’t until Monday morning.
From the hotel we watched the rain come down and played with our new daughter. We did that on Sunday too. Our National Guide held a "paperwork" session where we filled out all the American paperwork. She checked everything over and answered what questions she could. We had about 5 minutes a family scheduled at the consulate so everything had to be pretty much correct going in.
Monday we had an appointment at the American Consulate. Our National Guide took is right up to "Citizen Services" gate and right inside the consulate. I think this mildly annoyed the throngs of people waiting outside. [That’s okay, we waited at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco for quite a while]. We went upstairs where a pair of workers checked our paperwork. We then went into a waiting room where we would be interviewed by a consular officer.
All this time our National Guide is shuttling between two floors, keeping all of her familys in synch and handling the myriad of minor crisis that arose. The fact that we had a Chinese National assisting a group of Americans, fill out American forms for the American government in the American Consulate was not lost on us.
Our interview was done at a desk in the corner of the waiting room by a very nice lady who asked a minimal number of questions, smiled and wished us luck.
That’s all there was to it. After that we returned to the Hotel and waited for the American processing of our paperwork.
And we watched the rain come down. We tried to do some shopping near the Hotel, but the logistics of carrying the umbrella, keeping the rain off the kid, trying not to get soaked ourselfs, proved to be too much. We pretty much decided just to stay in the Hotel.
We explored the White Swan, which is very much worth exploring. A few tips about staying at the White Swan:
During our last two days in Canton, the weather broke to the point we go out and do some touring. Our National Guide took us to this very old buddist temple in Canton that had a pagoda and some thousand year old statues of Buddha. Totally facienating.
During our tour, our National Guide bumped into another tourist and apologized in English. The tourist smiled and said something in French. Our tour guide went "Oh!" and launched into a long discussion with the tourist in French. The toursit was utterly delighted since I think it was the first French they had heard in country. Our estimation of our National Guide, already high, went up a couple of notches.
While we were there, most members of our group got a Buddist blessing for our children.
Our last full day on Canton was spend in a very pretty lakeside park. We were also given the opportunity to purchase souveniers from an "Official Tourist" establishment. (I’d watch those – they’re ok, but you can probably do better in the unsanctioned shops – we bought all of our tea sets in a tiny shop about ½ a block from the White Swan). We also went to a Jewelery manufacturer that had much better prices than its Hong Kong equivalent.
We then went home and packed up for the final leg of our trip. Late that afternoon, our National Guide went to the American Consulate and picked up our "Do Not Open" envelopes and our childrens American entry visas.
On the last day, we put our bags outside the door at the appointed hour and assembled in the lobby of the White Swan.
Our itenaray called for us to fly from Canton to Hong Kong where we would catch our flight home. I was somewhat disappointed that we had to fly. We were scheduled for a 6 hour layover in Hong Kong and rather than fly, we would have rather take the hydrofoil from Canton to Hong Kong. As it was we spent 30 minutes in traffic getting to the airport, an hour waiting at the airport, 20 minutes boarding the airplane for a 20 minute flight to Hong Kong.
At the Canton airport, we sadly bid farewell to our National Guide, provided her with a large tip, cleared chinese customs and boarded the airplane. We were anxious to get home with our new daughter, but we were a bit sad to be leaving China. We decided then and there, we would return as soon as pure tourists.
We had to carry our bags through exit customs and surrendered our "Get out of China card". After that we checked the bags with the airline. They arranged for the bags to transferred to our flight home. We had carryons for all the necessities during the flight, so we didn’t care at this point if our bags went temporarily astray.
The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful. The group had talked about leaving the airport during the 6 hour layover and going to Repulse bay, but we were advised against it.
So we spent our 6 hours in what charitably could be called the worlds largest duty free shop. Future travelers would be advised to join whatever club your airline has so you use the lounges the airlines maintain at Kai Tak. We had always considered those a waste before, but we would have paid big bucks to get into the United lounge at Kai Tak. The chairs there looked a heck of a lot more comfortable that the chairs in the airport.
Right on schedule United put us on the "boarding busses" and took us out to our 747 for the flight home.
The flight home was about ½ full. We had purchased a seat for Erika, so that money was basically wasted, however we didn’t begrudge it. If we hadn’t purchased the seat, the bird would have been full.
From Hong Kong to SFO is about 12 hours. During that time, we closed all the curtains on the plane, watched three movies, ate twice and cuddled our daughter. She traveled better than we did and we ended up taking turns sleeping, while the other held the kid.
We made a phone call about two hours out from SFO to make sure our ride was still on. Unfortunately at that point we were still well offshore and the call was placed (with adequate warning) via the INMARSAT. A two minute phone call cost us about $40.00 Future travlers might want to wait until the plane is within radio range of the United States.
The arrival in SFO was uneventful. The INS officials opened the packet, stamped something and waved us through. Tip for future travelers: You want to go through the new immigrant line. It is considerably shorter than the other lines.
WHAT WE DID RIGHT
WHAT WE DID WRONG
A FEW FINAL TIPS
So that’s the story of our trip. Of course your mileage will vary.
If you are real fortunate, your National Guide in China will introduce herself as Ma Yu Ling of Beijing ("Just call me Marilyn"). You will then have a lady dedicated to getting your through you experience as pleasantly as possible.
With this posting we unsubscribe from APC. We wish your good luck and godspeed on your adoption journey. We hope to hear from you all on the post-adopt list.
Jerry, Claire, Erika and Fang (the poodle) Pendleton
June 1997
Erika's Foster Mother holding her new charge with some orphanage workers