When the maid made up our hotel room last afternoon, she took our half used soap and did not replace it. We could not wash our hands for a day.

At our last breakfast in the hotel, the buffet table had one fork, so I had to share with Katie. Mid-morning they were down to one hardboiled egg, so I let Claire have that. It seems they set out everything at 6:30 and the waitresses just watch stuff disappear. Chris would was too late for watermelon the day before, so she was proactively disappointed and didn’t join us for that last meal.

Because our bus out of Maoming was at noon we saw an opportunity for the girls to swim before checkout. The pool was a beautiful blue tile one, but drained of water, the girls didn’t want to play in it.

Jason, his third day in the same clothes, took us from Maoming to the one-gate airport in Zhanjiang. It was also a one-lizard airport as Claire discovered. It was crawling *inside* the airport next to the gate door.

If an airport bathroom doesn’t have soap, paper towels, a hand dryer or toilet paper, should it still be considered a bathroom?

And for those who are curious, a metal sword inside your wife’s luggage attracts the attention of baggage screeners. It didn’t fit in my bag. Honest.

The plane landed in Guangzhou for our last night in China. Another pixie of a guide, Nancy, picked us up.

We met up with our new, good friends who had prearranged a few hours earlier for us to have almost adjacent rooms at the White Swan hotel. I know it’s a five star hotel because they gave us five key cards.

Since it was storming in Guangzhou, the planned itinerary of having the four girls go swimming was scrapped in favor of much bouncing on hotel beds and the ceremonial exchanging of comfort foods: Oreos to them, a bottle of Sprite to us.

It is standard protocol for adoptive parents to stay at the White Swan and then eat down the street at Lucy’s Bar and Restaurant at least once. Even though we’ve adopted two, this was the first time we did either when the eight of us dined that night. I had an American burger that actually tasted like an American burger.

Katie pointed at a poster on the restaurant’s wall and asked if it was Gwen Stefani.

I then explained who Marilyn Monroe was.

The orphanage we visited was not the orphanage Katie lived in for eight months and we knew that. When we inquired where the original orphanage from 13 years ago was, we were told it was just one of the buildings at the new location as she pointed to a relatively new building. Sadly this isn’t true as we have pictures of a less than desirable facility from other adoptive parents that was at a different location. We weren’t permitted to view the less than flattering site 13 years ago and we weren’t about to know of its existence this time around either.

Our family with one of the few caregivers from 12 years ago

We also wanted to show Katie where the notary office was where she was given to us where we completed the adoption process, but we were told that it doesn’t exist anymore. I just wish we had the street address. In 2003, we were told Claire’s founding site in Fuling was underwater from the Three Gorges Dam. Funny thing is we visited the address just a few day ago. The street was quite dry. I believe these were instances where it was simpler for the directors to misdirect us rather than expend the effort to look up the information.

My wife had the temerity to ask this morning whether there was there a note left in the box which contained our 2-day-old Katie. A question Katie herself has been asking us over the years. The director then proceeded to apologize that it was beyond her control, but China’s national adoption agency, CCAA, would not permit us to even view the details our daughter’s file. They have them, but we cannot see them. We know this to be completely untrue. The purpose of these homeland visits is to peruse this information and we send copious amounts of information ahead of our arrival so the files can be pulled. We saw Claire’s file just last week and every other family was able to see theirs. But the response from the current director stopped us from asking any more questions.

Katie, Chris, the orphanage secretary and our guide in the conference room

Unfortunately because our guide did not realize that we had already paid for it and that he was to plan for it, we did not end up inviting the orphanage director, the secretary or the one employee they could find who had been there from 13 years ago, to lunch. Seeing as though we weren’t allowed to ask questions, there was less of a need to talk offsite anyways.

We did see Katie’s founding site, the Xinhua Bookstore, after leaving the orphanage. Conveniently it was right across the street from the hotel we were staying. The store was larger than I would have imagined, about the size of a typical American (non-defunct) bookstore. We asked if there were any photo books of Maoming, but our guide could only find one and it had only a few pictures. We opted for a map instead.

At Katie's founding location

I was hoping to talk to any employee who might have been there from 1998 and might have remembered anything, but Jason pointed out that the place seemed to be staffed by younger ladies who could not possibly have been employed there back then. Our guide did end up taking us into the back room where the manager’s office was and explained our situation to them. None of the half dozen or so in the office could recall anything from that time either. Jason and the manager exchanged numbers in case someone with information could be found later.

The management at the bookstore

This momentous day with our guide was barely two hours and although it was a bit of a disappointment from the point of Katie’s personal story, we were heartened to see children well cared for.

My wife completed the day with some retail therapy with Katie. It is quite an oddity to see a blonde woman in Maoming, so we all got stares as Chris attempted pick out a necklace and some bracelets. One sales lady assisting my family became three sales ladies then four the longer she took to decide. By the time Chris reached the checkout counter to pay we were surrounded by eight sales ladies. One helping. Seven watching. Of course none of them spoke a stitch of English so the checkout process was still very labored.

On this last non-travel day, we hit the bank down the street to exchange the last of our greenbacks. It was 4:50pm on a Friday afternoon. The security guard locked the doors behind us right as we left the bank.

We never had the chance to visit the Social Welface Institute in Maoming when we adopted Katie. In the winter of 1998, she was given to us at the local notary’s office and we met its director in the lobby of the hotel across the street. Katie had the good fortune to meet the director as an elementary child when she visited the states, but she has long since retired.

Since her adoption, a more modern was built for the children of Maoming. We recognized the pink and white tile building from pictures on the web the when we drove up to it today. It is home to about 300 children from birth to 15 years old. 1400 children have been adopted from there since 1993.

Courtyard of the Maoming Social Welfare Institute

The building is semi-circular around a courtyard with a marble statue of a caregiver and two children in the middle. The room walls that face the courtyard are glass from chair rail to ceiling. An open air hallway connects all the rooms. Some off the hallway floors and restrooms were wet from having been recently scrubbed clean. Another section is being built and it looks to grow the complex by another 30% with more classrooms.

In front of the courtyard statue

The current director took us to several rooms with children; the first with children under two. Like the Fuling orphanage, most had disabilities but many were sitting up or rolling around in their cribs. A few were getting their faces scrubbed cleaned by caregivers. The ratio of kids to caregivers seemed remarkably low 3 to 1.

A classroom

We saw a couple of rooms filled with preschool and early elementary children. As we walked up the stairs between floors, childrens crayon art covered the lower tile portion of the stairwell. Neatly drawn numbers were drawn above them. As children were led in small groups from one room to another, they would grab onto the back of the shirt of the one in front of them. Two caregivers were assisting a couple of boys in braces walk the hallway. We distracted they from their concentration when we strolled by. I said “Ni Hao” lots.

Hallway outside a classroom

A row of little shoes lined the half wall adjacent each classroom door. The classroom walls themselves were brightly decorated with three dimensional children’s art. Tissue paper mobiles hung from the ceiling. A handful of dried up red markers were taped around a clock turning it into rays of a sun. In both rooms the kids gathered around their teachers while they were clapping and singing songs. The kids seemed genuinely happy to be where they were.

Another classroom

The director mention of a few American non-profits, including Half The Sky, which donate equipment and sponsor educational programs for the kids. She was careful to point those out to us. While we took pictures of the building and children, the secretary of the orphanage was taking many pictures of our family. They wanted us to sign their guestbook and exchange emails with us so we could email them pictures of Katie. Katie wanted to put her email address.

Katie with the director

At the conference room, they gave each of our girls a delicate shell necklace carved into the shape of a sailboat representing this coastal city. The far wall inside the conference room displayed dozens of recent pictures of families, like us, who had come back for orphanage visits with their children. Alongside the photos was a message to the adoptive parents thanking us for providing a family for the children. It began…

Family is a quiet harbor all people.

Maybe Claire’s orphanage is for growing loud harbor families.

The flight to Zhanjiang was delayed quite a bit and we didn’t meet Jason in the destination city until mid afternoon. The Zhanjiang airport is tiny and there was an 1.5 hour bus ride to Katie’s hometown of Maoming. The driver, like seemingly everyone else in the city, likes to honk his horn while driving. He honked it about a dozen times per kilometer the entire way into the city.

Maoming, although it seems like a large city, is remote enough that nobody speaks English. Attempting to order dinner at the hotel was a treat. Katie ordered from a picture and the first two things I picked out weren’t available (too Western). We avoided the tap water served us and this was the first hotel that didn’t understand the word “Sprite” when we requested it. We spotted a can across the room so Chris got up to point out what she and girls wanted to drink. The three waiters that surrounded the table and genial and attempted to help us order, so the experience was more humorous than frustrating. Three of the meals came with one sanitary food preparation glove each. I have no idea why. Claire liked wearing hers.

The hotel is the nicest one in the city and it towers over the rest of its buildings. We are near the top floor and the room is spacious. Like every hotel we’ve been at, the service directory warns us not to drink the tap water. Unlike every other hotel, this one does not offer a couple of complimentary bottles of water as an alternative. At this point in the trip Claire admits she’s “getting too burpy” to drink more soda. Our saving grace is that there is a large, fine grocery store on the fourth floor of the building. I’d buy a bottle of Great Wall red wine if the room had a corkscrew.

Our room also has a computer in it which is both a blessing and a curse. The Windows XP computer is obviously behind the Great F*rewall of China blocking Skype and all the social media sites. It has been configured for Chinese and is impossible to switch over to English as it resets its settings upon each reboot. I tried re-using its static IP address and routes on my netbook but it must have some additional filtering to block that too, so there is no VPN access here. Poopers.

We checked into the White Swan hotel which is on Shamian island in the middle of a river that flows through Guangzhou. It is the traditional lodging for Americans adopting children from China. Those adoptions are much less frequent than they were ten years ago, and now what you see is adopted pre-teens with their parents on their homeland visit. Jocelyn said there were 48 from our tour agency alone just that morning.

Claire and Katie in the lobby of the White Swan

Just as an aside, why do 5-star hotels charge for in-room Internet access when 4-star hotels don’t? It is annoying. Have to admit I’m willing to spend $4 for a can of Diet Coke but not $8 for a day’s worth of Internet in my room. Perhaps I should cave. I did a quick check of the number of clean socks, underwear and shirts in my suitcase and I was short one shirt for the number of days left in the trip. I decided to buy a new T-shirt for $4 instead of paying $9 at the hotel to have one I already own cleaned.

After a lunch of Dim Sum in a private room for just our family in a eight storey restaurant, Jocelyn took us to a government sponsored handicrafts store. Although I said no to Claire’s request for a $300 mural, Chris did say yes to Katie’s request for a $13 calligraphy set. It will match the one we already have at home. Amazingly Claire showed interest in another calligraphy set shortly afterward at another store. If you want to keep account at home, we now have 3 calligraphy sets and we’ve purchased, while we’ve been here, 4 swords and 7 fans, not including the 4 we were given on the boat cruise.

We stopped by the place where Katie and Claire got their passport picture taken on Shamian island and again at the physician examination building where all U.S.-bound adopted children are examined before departure. Last time I was there, I was carrying Claire from room to room, along with several dozen other parents with children, to visit several doctors who weighed and measured children and checked their hearts, ears, noses and throats. It was a mad house in 2003, but it is empty now. I didn’t see a single child or doctor beyond the doors marked “Examination Room for Adopted Children” this time around.

The examination room from their adoption days

Elephant Trunk Hill

You could rent native costumes along the banks and have your picture taken in embroidered silk garments and silver head dresses in front of the limestone elephant’s trunk. They didn’t have outfits for men, so I was crestfallen.

We then went to a tea factory. The word “factory” is now a key word for an hour in a gift shop preceded by a brief educational experience. We learned about the different types of tea (white, green, yellow, black, compressed, etc.) and how they are made. They all come from the same plant, but it is the combination, size and color of the leaves harvested that indicates the type. At a tea ceremoney we sampled a few and learned how men and women should hold teacups and what kind of teapots, porcelain or clay, to use to prepare for each. Yet another example of something I’ve done wrong all my life.

In the tea fields

After lunch we went to the Xinfu Silk Textile factory. There’s that word again. Unfortunately the ratio of new knowlege to hard sell afterward was pretty low at the place. Evidently if you buy a silk comforter you can save on facial cream each night. Nobody from out group bought anything here. Andy admitted on the bus that he has eaten fried silk worm. And dog.

We briefly crossed paths with Katie and Claire’s best buddies from earlier on this trip; after visiting one of their orphanages, they are now a behind us in their touring of Guilin and are here another day. The rest of the group is splitting up as well to head to their respective orphanages. Our temporary guide, Bing, took us to the overnight train to Guangzhou because Andy was now occupied taking other families elsewhere.

Sleeper train berth

The “soft sleeper” berth on the train to Guangzhou was 6′ x 6′. There are two 2′x6′ bunk beds on either side with a small table between under the window. Below the table was an insulated pot of hot water and a volume control knob for horrendous easy listening music. We used neither.

Raft before it attached to our boat

Of one the hills along the river is known as the Painted Hill of Nine Horses. The exposed variegated limestone on the hill is said to contain the outline of nine different horses at various places on its precipice for those with a keen eye. I think I maybe saw two if squinted; clearly I have no imagination.

Painted Hill of Nine Horses

For those keeping track, I had Li Jiang beer along with my lunch on the boat. It’s not that I love beer, but the chances are better that you’ll be served more than 4 ounces of a liquid with your meal if you choose beer. And end point of the cruise they handed out fans for each one of us, which seemed odd because the dining area was air conditioned. Only when I got off a marketplace in Yangshuo did I appreciate the gesture. It was hot. Up the street market, our group stopped at a shop that sold beautiful Miao crafts and jewerly. And perhaps more importantly, had an air conditioner running at full blast in the back.

Start of the "Golf Cart" tour

I bought some semi-gelato-esque ice cream for my daughters just up the street and most of the group joined them shortly afterward before heading into town for a “golf cart” tour of the local area. We stopped at a rice paddy and an historical 340-year-old house. Beans and peppercorns were drying in the open area between the mud room where there were a few birds in cages. The girls pumped water from the house’s well and ground soybeans in an old stone press.

Claire grinding soybeans

The house had a pair of open, painted caskets in one of the dark rooms. The lady of house, who did not speak English, made a sleeping gesture with her hands aside her face to indicate what the long, hollow wooden item was (which was pretty obvious). Then she pointed to an elderly man in the front of the house indicating that he was eventually going to be its occupant.

The rest of us were assigned Rebecca (Ginger Spice, with dark auburn hair) for a few hours to take us to the airport for the flight in Guilin. Another efficient handoff.

We were met by Andy (Bieber Spice?) in Guilin. His English isn’t as good as the other guides (who were excellent), but he is knowlegeable about his home town and is personable like all the others. We had a light rice noodle lunch when we arrived. Although I swear I wasn’t hungry after the lunch on the airplace, I ate a big delicious bowl of noodles with seasonings.

The population of the city of Guilin is small by Chinese standards at about 600,000. As Andy as told us a few times, it had a face lift after Bill Clinton visited. The president had apparently made an off-hand comment indicating it had the potential to be beautiful city, so the Chinese government shoveled money into re-development.

Well it is beautiful now. Like other cities, the larger streets have a separate outside lanes for bikes and scooters, but here they are tree-lined. There are four lakes in the city fed by two different rivers with the water clear enough, and the city hot enough, that many people swim off the banks in the morning and evening. In the morning after sending their grandchildren off to school, the grandparents gather at the park along the banks for tai chi.

The city is known for the numerous small limestone hills that rise sharply from the city plateau. A picture of them is on the 20 Yuan note if you want to google for it. Apparently the hills were the inspiration for the landscape of the Avatar movie. Tour buses abound here in what has become a tourist city.

In the afternoon we visited the Reed Flute Cave. Chris, because it was her natural habitat, stayed in the gift shop while the rest of us traipsed up and down the stairs in the cave. Colored lights highlighted formations that were said to resemble lions or monkeys. And no cave experiece would be complete without a tacky laser light show with music near the exit.

Reed Flute Cave

The air conditioning on the bus died after we were dropped off and it was delayed quite awhile before it could pick us up. Yes, it is a first world problem, but China is really hot this time of year and we were all soaked in sweat by the time we got to the hotel. A planned trip to the art museum with a calligraphy was canceled because we were running late.

The hotel room in Guilin has picture window between the bathtub and the main sleeping section of the room. It is an odd arrangement for us non-exhibitionist types, but thankfully the window has a waterproof Roman shade that can be drawn. It beats the previous night’s hotel where there was a full length mirror running the length of bathtub. Showering in that hotel didn’t help my ego either.

The group had a late, pleasant dinner and I had yet another type of Chinese beer, Liquan, this time. I’m not a beer aficionado, but it beats coating my teeth with sugar from either Sprite or Coke. Diet drinks do not exist at restaurants and you have to beg for bottle water. The restaurant was on the second floor above a market. Its restrooms were on the second floor as well, except through an external walkway to another building. The typical arrangement we’ve found is a single toilet roll hanging outside the bathrooms. You have to remember to pre-measure the amount of paper you expect to need before heading in. It is always a surprise whether it will be a Western commode or the traditional Chinese hole in the floor to squat over.

Let’s just say sometimes is good to be a male.

Three locals (in back) wanted a picture with some Americans

I’m looking for something I know I’ll never find, so I ordered a new bike helmet in the wee hours of the morning from my hotel room. The online cart will filled while I was in China, so it counts as a souvenir.

Back of the hotel, 9 of the 11 girls had a cannonball contest at the rooftop pool in very cold water. My three-week old Entertainment Weekly got soaked from splashes. We’ve been so busy this first week and a half, I still haven’t finished it.

Before dinner, we visited the local food market. The produce looked quite fresh. Along the back and sides, they had meat and fish. A chicken was being plucked in the corner. He was selling whole chickens and various parts, including the feet. A few fish were still flopping in a plastic bag as they were being weighed for sale. The frog wasn’t so lucky. Its vendor grabbed it by its back leg and banged it on the table to kill it. We ended up purchasing some lo mein noodles and dumplings to take to a hot pot restaurant.

On the way to the restaurant, we had an impromptu talent show. Part song contest (with beat boxing!), magic show, random noises and a few jokes. Most of the participants were little girls. Most. Sample joke:

“How do you wake up Lady Gaga?”

“Poke R Face!”

Alice led the adults in a rousing rendition of “You are my Sunshine” to the astonishment our daughters who didn’t know we old folks could sing.

At the restaurant each table had large hole in the center of the table with a two nested pots. The inner pot with a mild white broth and an outer pot with a very spicy reddish brown broth. Little satellite plates had uncooked food ready to be boiled including our newly acquired lo mein noodles and dumplings. It was all laid out for us when we arrived, but when Alice saw what was selected she requested they swap out most of the exotic ingredients with tamer ones.

Sensing the need for more than 3 ounces of drink to accompany the food boiled in the outer ring, I opted for a pint of Blue Sword Beer. I dunked food mostly in the outer ring and it was the spiciest meal I’ve ever had. When I ran of the near-beer, I knew I was done eating, but not before touching my eyelid and causing it to burn for the latter half of the meal. Daubing my tear duct with a moistened napkin didn’t help at all.

A couple of hours later the pain subsided.

Katie and Ya Yun, an 11 month old panda

Today we went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a short drive from our hotel and the whole reason we are in this city. It is one of three panda preserves in the province. (85% of the pandas in the wild are are in this province.)

Ya Yun with Claire

Ya Yun weighs 48lbs and was one of six pandas born last summer in captivity here. The photo session came with an official Certificate of Love for Giant Panda. Our tour guide, Alice, queued with the girls for the pictures while parents had to remain outside Ya Yun’s little building. The preserve is very nicely laid out with scenic walkways and gorgeous bamboo groves, unfortunately not of the type edible by pandas. That kind of bamboo has to be trucked in from another location. We probably saw about a dozen giant pandas and about as many red pandas this morning. Most were only several meters away.

Before and after these pictures, Alice was herding us from one end of the preserve to the other. A few families would wander off then rejoin the group. Our guide easily counted the number in our group at a couple dozen times today to make sure no one ever got left behind.