Ciao Nanchang!

Ciao Nanchang View from Window
Originally uploaded by mc10672

Our wandering group of adoptive parents are moving on tomorrow to G-Town, Guangzhou, first thing tomorrow morning. It was a beautiful day today in Nanchang, the smog blew away about mid-afternoon and for the first time we had a clear view outside the hotel. The tower in the park square below has a big bell you can ring. We took a walk this afternoon, through the small walkway along the hotel, the one I like to call the National Geographic street. The one we saw the boy in split pants and where they have small shops where men smoke, drink tea and play dice. Today many old people were sitting on the steps outside the temple square and David took alot of video. We paid another visit to the porcelan shop-- and we ran into some parents who just bought some fried cakes from a street vendor -- they shared them with us - quite tasty - and we felt quite adventurous. And hopefully that is all we'll feel. We also bought a few oranges for Gracie. (2 Yuan for 5 oranges)

David had to go to do paperwork and we spent most of the day in the hotel room. Frank and Chrissy called and we did a 40 minute Skype video call, where they got to see Gracie roll around, play with her cups and get fed rice cereal and bananas. You got to love Skype, it is so--Jetsons.

Rui had found an error in Gracies PRC passport and went back to the notary to have it corrected. It turns out they had written Gong Ya Oi, not Gong Ya Qi on the passport. Only Rui noticed and she said the police station clerk complained when they had to re-do it, saying the letters look identical to them. Rui saves the day again.

As I mentioned before, David had to do US paperwork, and some papers you can use white out, others not; on top of that the same of the forms we had gotten from the consulate back in 05 had now expired and other families had to get new forms. By the way, G-town is all about US immigration; what we were doing in Nanchang was getting China's permission to leave the country with her. She now has nice red passport from the PRC - but her US one will be issued in GZ and that will be the one she uses to enter the US.

When we get settled into Guangzhou, we'll post again.

I included a photo of Gracie in her padded crib.