Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Monday 27 March 2000: Guangzhou

Before leaving the hotel in the morning, we exchanged $50.00 USD for 403.50 Yuan.

Bus trip to Shamin Island

Cherry gave a talk about adoption in China. Chinese who want to adopt can do so when they are 45 years old. This rule was recently changed to 40 years old if they are single. Some people have one child and then have a second biological child and say that it is adopted.

US Consulate

Our appointment was at 9am. Our fees were $325.00 USD. Everything was in order and it went well. Sadly, this is the one place in China where we were not allowed to take photos.

Shamin Island Shop

After the consulate appointment, we did some shopping and walked around the island. As one very nice shop on a street behind the 7-11 and photo shop, we found some very nice items.

• 10 folk art cards - 270 Yuan ($33.46 USD)
• Postcards and Abacus - 50 Yuan ($6.20 USD)
• pearl necklace
• 8 small boxes
• free jade disk bracelet

I'm not certain what postcards I bought. These might have been the two that I sent from China. On this day we did send a postcard to Delainie from us from China. I think the postage was 500 Fen, but I'll have to check the characters on the stamp. It had a picture of a Cormorant fisherman. These are people who fish in the river near Guilin. The cormorant is a bird and the fisherman puts a band around the bird's neck which prevents it from swallowing the fish it catches.

Shops by the 7-11

This was our last shopping before we left Shamin Island.

• 4 sets of old stamps - one with illustrations of all 55 minorities in China
• 10 lady stamps
• old coin set
• Stamps and Drum - 80 Yuan ($9.91 USD)
• Soda from the 7-11 - 10.50 Yuan ($1.30 USD)

I don't know if the price included all of the stamps.

Calling Cathay Pacific

Back at the Hotel, each family had to call Cathay Pacific, our airline for the return flight to the US and confirm our reservations.

Cathay Pacific Phone Number: 00852-2747-1888
Delta in Hong Kong Phone Number 00852-2526-5875

They have a lunch break between 12:30pm and 2:00pm so I called back and everything was set.

Camera Shop

We dropped off many rolls of film and the disposible camera that we had sent to the foster mother to be developed for 240 Yuan ($29.74 USD).

Hard Rock Café - Lunch

Around 1pm, we went down to the Hard Rock Café and had lunch. We stayed for about an hour. The server gave Delainie a small red stuffed toy that looks sort of like Elmo or a red cookie moster. The order of Chicken and Spinach dip, the Onion Ring (Ringo) combo and two wonderful strawberry milk shakes came to 213.90 Yuan (26.51 USD) but it I think the shakes were worth it!

We also bought three Hard Rock Guangzhou shirts, one for each of us, which were rather expensive - $350 Yuan ($43.37 USD). We also bought a HRC hat for Mark down in San Antonio. I've got a cool flyer of Hard Rock merchandise in English and Chinese. I simply wish the shirts had "Guangzhou" in Chinese alone or labeled in both Chinese and English.

Camera Shop

We either dropped off more film or picked up file or both! What ever the case, we spent 115.8 Yuan ($14.35 USD). When we went back for the photos, we were given a couple small free paperboard albums and a package of 10 large plasic cover albums for our photos.

Dong Fang Hotel - Guangdong Foreign Languages Bookstore

The bookstore was a great place and I did a lot of my shopping there. I bought:

• two copies of A Children's English-Chinese Picture Word Book for 20 Yuan ($2.48 USD) - #1 of 4 and #4 of 4 - I should have bought #2 and #3; I had seen all four a few days earlier
• Er Tong Kan Tu Shi Zi Xue Ying Yu - a children's picture dictionary for about 12 Yuan ($1.49 USD)
• a book all in Chinese - I don't know why; perhaps because I didn't pick up Mao's little red book in Beijing
• Classical Chinese-Present Day Chinese and English Renditions - a book of old Chinese stories (wise tales or proverbs) in both older Chinese, simplified Chinese and English for 18 Yuan ($2.23 USD)
• Poems by Mao Tsetung for 15 Yuan ($1.86 USD)
• What's in a Chinese Character? for 85 Yuan ($10.53 USD) - a book on the origins of many Chinese pictographs.
• a Travel in China book on Guangzhou
• a Travel in China book on Guilin

Maybe not this day, but sometime before we left, I also picked up two sets of postcards:

• Guangzhou postcards - 25 Yuan ($3.10 USD)
• Guilin postcards for probably the same amount

I couldn't find any postcards or a travel book on Nanning.