Our day started with a trip to Yuexiu Park, which is a big beautiful park and burial place of an emperor. It is also a place where retired people gather to play hackey sack and we got to wander through the area where they play and it is really quite impressive. We'll try to post a video of it after we return. Of course Nealy now owns a hackey sack, but John says it can not interfere with her tennis career or lead to any inclination to play soccer (save the knees!). In China men can retire at age 55 and women at 50 with benefits. So the retired people are actually very young. We then did some more shopping on Shamian Island. This afternoon we went to the US Consulate for our final adoption interview, signed our last papers (yes, finally they weren't "pay"pers!) and took the citizenship oath on behalf of Nealy. We are now officially finished with all things adoption related until we land in LA and go through customs, where Nealy officially becomes a US citizen. We will have her travel visa tomorrow. Yippeee! We ended the day with a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. At first, we thought we were nuts to drag Nealy out at night, but it turned out to be really a nice evening to be out. Nealy was fantastic, except for about 10 minutes on the bus ride to the boat and about 5 minutes on the bus ride back to the hotel -- nothing a few puffs and a few dissolving Chinese crackers we found at a 7-11 couldn't fix. The biggest surprise of the day was that there wasn't a surprise monsoon! It sprinkled a little this morning but no other rain! This was the first day we've been her without rain. A few of the families will be leaving for home tomorrow so we'll be saying a few good-byes :(
A statue of 5 mythical celestial goats that brought rice to Guangzhou to symbolize the area would be free of famine. There's nothing in the myth whether the locals ate the goats, but they do look like they would have been tasty. This statue is at the top of a hill, with 99 stairs to get to the top. Have we mentioned how miserably hot and humid it is here???
The girls with their "girls."
Then a stop at the White Swan Hotel for some pictures on the "famous" red couches. The White Swan Hotel used to be located near the US Consulate before the Consulate relocated. Adopting families stayed at the White Swan Hotel and traditionally had their pictures taken on the red couches.
Another banyan tree! This one was a bonsai at the White Swan. Not sure if they call them bonsai here since that's a Japanese word...
After a short return to the hotel, a shower and a wardrobe change for John (in case we haven't mentioned it, it's very hot and humid here), we went to the US Consulate. This is the last point where we could take pictures within the Consulate. Soon after this they take everyone's cameras and cellphones and return them after the citizenship oath ceremony.
A little sampling of John's food from the buffet -- the "grayish" stuff at top left is duck kidney and to the left of that is a duck foot. Below the duck foot is fish with sauerkraut. Yes, John actually ate all of it and was the only American in the group to do so...
The nightime skyline from the riverboat. Just like when we were in China in 2007, it's difficult to look at the skyline in most cities without seeing a crane or two, and Guangzhou is no exception.
The purple building in the distance is the Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower. Including the antena, it is 1,968 ft tall -- about twice as tall as the Sears Tower in Chicago.