« Urban explorers | Main | Tokyo-bound »
June 22, 2005
And just like that, it's finished
This morning started with the standard medication and café breakfast. At 10:30, we gathered in the lower lobby, and headed out the door toward the reason for our presence in Guangzhou...the American consulate. We checked, double-checked and triple checked our passports. Everything in order, we crowded into the front room to escape the drizzle that, as it happened, would continue all that day.
We passed through a metal detector, then out into a secured courtyard. Into another building, through another detector, up the elevator and along a labyrinthine corridor that ended in a dismally familiar-looking location -- a US government waiting room. The walls, carpet and furniture were uniformly gray, and uniformly stained. The acoustic tile ceiling was pocked here and there with odd blemishes, and the harsh fluorescent lights buzzed slightly as the room filled.
On the far wall, a row of glass teller windows gave a view into an office full of government-issue gray steel filing cabinets stacked high with file folders. I paused for a moment to be impressed that our paperwork had been processed at all, if this level of apparent disarray was representative. Our assembled group was greeted in very short order by a cheerful consular official, a bespectacled man in a rumpled gray suit and tending toward rotundity about the middle.
He congratulated us on surviving what he called "the world's most bureaucratic process," and explained what would happen with our paperwork. He noted with both apparent pride and apparent regret that his office processed more than seven thousand adopted child visas last year alone -- and that was just to the US. I heard more than a few gasps in the crowd at that number. Then, at his behest, the adults all raised their right hands and swore or affirmed that the information provided in their paperwork was true to the best of their knowledge.
It was probably the shortest wait time I have ever experienced in any encounter with our esteemed Federal government.
Before we filed out, Rose congratulated us. "Now you are really parents. Up to now, you've only been babysitters!" Passing out through the security gates, I noted the ram-proof truck entry and the STD devices. These people were seriously secure, but I couldn't (and still can't) get my head around the idea of "Chinese terrorists." People in most of the places we had been seemed too docile, or too cowed, to engage in malicious violence. Of course that's not universally true, but the heavy security seemed oddly out of place on quiet little Shamian Island.
Outside, we retrieved the stroller we had been forbidden to take inside, and headed toward the hotel to await Emma's visa to enter the US. The rain was steady now, but light -- though we might have taken the deepening puddles in the road as an omen.
We waited in our room, watching TV and playing with Emma. Suddenly, a loud crack and a bright flash announced the presence of a thunderstorm and, in very short order, the hotel was being lashed by the hardest rain we'd seen since we arrived in China. Serious rain...the kind that makes you decide that going outside, even to run across the street, would be a bad idea.
The visa papers arrived a little before lunch. I commented that Emma now had something no one else in our family ever would -- a communist passport. We snacked, played and read until, around 1pm, the rain subsided. We passed another hour while the flooding in the streets did likewise, then headed down the street to Lucy's bar and grill for lunch, making our way past still-flooded streets and trying our best to keep our feet dry.
As we ordered fried chicken fingers, french fries and Cokes, Jeff and Eve arrived with little Linnea in tow. From them, we learned that some of the group had already headed out to the airport. We thought about that for a moment, and agreed cynically that had we scheduled our flight so tightly, Emma's cough would no doubt have detained us.
Jeff and Evie's presence made for nice conversation while we awaited our lunch. The three of us ate heartily, Lara and I savoring the knowledge that tomorrow morning would see us in first-class seats headed toward Tokyo. After eating, we made our goodbyes and did a little more shopping. Bobby's Place yielded up a cap for Chris, a dress for Emma and a few small trinkets. The tea house where we had hoped to acquire a few nicer items was flooded, so we aborted our mission early and returned to the hotel.
The remainder of the day was spent alternately playing with Emma and packing. We found that, what with our foresight in bringing extra bags, we had no shortage of space. The only issue was balancing things out a bit, and properly packing fragile items. Both of us were happy that we had, years ago, rescued a hardside American Tourister bag bound for Goodwill from Lara's mother's house. That provided the security our ceramics and lacquerware needed, as well as keeping our artwork from being folded (or, presumably, spindled or mutilated).
That evening, we splurged on a very nice dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was another buffet, but a splendid one. Roast beef and pork, caviar (which Emma, in a possible precursor of things to come, loved). Fresh fruits, cooked vegetables of every kind and desserts upon desserts, ranging from small fruit tarts to fresh ice cream. The three of us ate with gusto, determined to extract our money's worth from this last dinner in the Far East.
After eating, we took one last stroll through the hotel shops. Husbanding the last of our money carefully, we selected a few more small gift items, and found the last thing on our list for Emma -- a pink butterfly kite. Returning to the room, we ensconced these last items in the suitcases. Then, satisfied that we had packed everything, we laid out or clothes for the next morning, arranged the bags in go-order, and turned in for the night. If we felt any regrets about this being our last night in China, they were drowned under a tidal wave of anticipation for our return to the land of biscuits and sweet tea as we dropped off to sleep.
Posted by brlittle at June 22, 2005 11:53 PM