Doing Great!

The hotel room comes with 2 breakfast buffets.  The 2 extras we need would cost about $20 a piece.  Scott has two bowls of noodles and maybe some juice and a piece of bread.  Those are some pricey noodles, so I send Creed and Pierce down to the hotel buffet and I have been staying in the room for oatmeal, fruit and juice.  My oatmeal is vanilla flavored and I put pieces of peach in it.  Scott likes the chicken and beef flavored oatmeal.  I didn’t know there was such a thing until Scott picked it off the shelf at the grocery store.  He loves it.  Tomorrow I will take him to McDonalds to see how his taste buds will do with an egg mcmuffin.

I did take him to breakfast a couple of mornings ago when Creed and Pierce went to McDonalds.  We sat next to a 35ish black guy who said hello when he sat down by us.  He sounded pretty accent free, so I ventured into a conversation with him.  He is from Kenya.  His name is Raymond. He graduated from Michigan State. Lived in Roseville, CA for a few years and bought a home there in 2005.  He told me how crazy the mortgage companies were to give loans so easily.   Long story short - you can be in a hotel in Southern China, sitting next to a guy from Kenya, who lived within a few miles of where you used to live and is familiar with the your profession.  He said if it wasn’t for living in America, learning to work like Americans, he would not have been there talking to me at that moment.  He said the problem with Kenya, and any underdeveloped country, is that the people don’t understand how to work.

We have seen many people here with big red circles on their necks, backs and shoulders.  They look like big, perfectly round, hickies.  We finally realized what they are.  It is an Asian alternative medicine technique called cupping.  We saw it on a show on Discovery channel.  A glass bulb is filled with hot air by an open flame, then attached to the skin.  It then sucks the blood to that area.  Mystery solved.

We went to the Chimelong International Circus 2 nights ago.  It is totally amazing.  Everything you think a circus should have, this one has it.  The boys loved it!  I was a little worried about Scott being on sensory overload for 2 hours, but he did really well.  There is definitely a difference in being here during the summer.  Besides the hotter weather, there is just more people everywhere.  We went with the Williamsons and I was kind of playing tour guide since they had never been on the subway before.  I thought we would get there in about 30 minutes, but it took close to an hour because of all the crowds along the way.  The circus has a capacity of 8,000 people and they probably had 7500 in attendance.  We were still early enough to have decent seats, but when it was over we were in a hot, sweaty, wave of people making their way to the shuttle buses and into the subway.  The subway station there is not airconditioned so it felt like a sauna.  We didn't get any relief until the subway train started moving.  Fortunately they have a nice flow of cool air blowing through the cars when it is moving.  And being a head taller than everyone else in the trains, Creed, Pierce and I can cool off pretty well in the breeze.

We got back to the hotel about 10:30 and Scott was still in great spirits.  There was a birthday cake waiting for him in the room.  It was supposed to be delivered at 5:00, but it came while we were gone.  The hotel gives the cake for free to the adopted kids with birthdays during their stay here.  I didn't think to take a picture of it before we ate it, but it looked like a chocolate gift box with hard chocolate sides with a soft cake layered with whip cream in the middle.

Yesterday was another shopping trip to restock the oatmeal, water, fruit, etc.  We also got word that Scott's TB test in the blood work came back positive, so we had to head back to the medical clinic for X-Rays to double check the lungs.  After just 30 minutes and another $20, he was cleared.  He was probably exposed to TB, but never got the disease.  that would have been a real tough situation if he had TB.  Either he would have had to go back to the orphanage for a number of months while he took medication, or we would have had to stay with him through the treatment.  Either option would have been very difficult so we are very lucky he is clear to come home. 

Now on to some photos of our recent travels...

This is a 5 foot brass plate in a park close to one of main shopping areas here in Guangzhou.  It's probably the point from which the entire town was layed out and surveyed.  But that is just a guess.

This is why we are here!

There were a total of 7 guys riding motorcycles around in this mesh cage.  They put on this circus 365 days a year.  You would think they would crash once in a while.

The remains of that really cool looking birthday cake for Scott.  I wasn't thnking about taking a picture of it before we ate it since it was 10:30 pm.

Quaker instant oatmeal.  The bag on the left is chicken flavor.  Scott's bag.  The other one I thought was craisen or something, but I think it might be vanilla.  It's kind of funky, but fresh peaches and a little doctoring with berry jam makes it pretty good.

A monster rain storm from our hotel window.

The chest X-Ray to confirm there was no TB after the blood test was positive.  We are good.  I don't know if they told him to hug the machine or not, but they must have said something to that affect.

A monster cockroach.  Yes - this is in the medical clinic.  Scott saw it first and started laughing.  He pointed it out to me.  After I took this photo is scampered down the wall into an office full of nurses.  They promptly screamed and Scott and I had a giggle together.

He was a bit embarrassed to be without his shirt on. 

Paying the fees at the medical clinic with Grace, our guide in the orange shirt, and Scott looking on.

Emily and Hannah Williamson showing Scott some games on the iPad.  They are both very sweet girls.

What every medical clinic should have in the lobby - a vending machine with wine.

It might be just me, but I don't think the lobby for a medical clinic should have flower arrangements that look an awful lot like funeral flowers.

Hannah and Michael Williamson showing a friendly, wandering Chinese girl a game on the iPad with Scott looking on.  This was in the police station. 

This was also at the police station.  No, this is not the Walkers. It is the Williamsons.  I took a picture of them and they were going to take a picture of us in front of the same wall.  However, it was just after this photo that we were enlightened about the prohibition of taking photos at the police station.  So you can imagine us standing there - its quicker than photo shop.