CA Out of the Way, and Signing Off From China

After a rushed breakfast we were off to the American Consulate at 9:00 for the last step of our paperwork trail here in China, the Consulate Appointment.  This procedure is very not glamorous.  The setting is pretty drab, the office building is semi-vacant, and talking with a person through bullet proof glass is about as impersonal as it can get.  But, I think we got the gentlemen everyone raves about to be our interviewer.  His Chinese was pretty good and he was very nice and chatted up Juliana quite a bit.  It was kind of him to tell us she has a very nice personality.  Hopefully she sees some hope in being able to communicate with her currently very lame parents.

We are now in a last minute rush to try to get things done that we hoped and need to get done.  We sent Juliana a disposable camera that is full of more pictures of her orphanage life; we just dropped that off today to get developed.  We missed going to Shamian Island yesterday when we went to the orphanage, so a taxi trip there is on tap for tomorrow.  People we have known over the past two weeks are departing each day now and we are not really getting to say proper farewells having to chase around two rambunctious girls all over the grounds of the hotel.

Feeding the koi; wait until you see the video

We did a subway ride to a bookstore this afternoon, and we are wishing we had gotten this training sooner.  It is an amazing transit system, but the ins and outs of the plastic tokens are a mystery until you seen their use in action.  Having the confidence to use the Metro a week ago sure would have opened up our options of things to do, especially since the zoo ends up being only two stops away from the station right at the Garden.

Thursday’s flight plan is flying out of Guangzhou to Tokyo, then we have a 6:10 pm (Tokyo Time) flight to Chicago.  If things go well, we will get in on time and have a five hour layover to deal with immigration and to enjoy the company of some of our Chicago based family members since we will be outside of the secure zones when we exit immigration and customs in the International Terminal.

We have to be ready to go at 6:30 am on Thursday morning for our ride to the airport, so unfortunately tomorrow will be an amazing day of last minute to do’s, packing, cooperative girls (ha!!) and just trying to keep our composure as this too long trip finally ends.  So for that reason we are 150% sure that there will not be time for the well written prose that has been gracing these blogs pages for the past two weeks.  Thanks for following along; we are sure over the next few weeks we can post some more extensive debriefs on a number of subjects as well as updates on how life at home is going with the girls.