continued from part 2

Wendy's boys were getting hungry and even though Jeff and I had recently returned from McDonald's with our children for lunch, I offered to go there with her since she wasn't quite sure how to get there. It's not a long walk, but you do have to cross over the bridge into Guangzhou, and walk through a few busy intersections.


On our first trip to this McDonald's when we were here over a week ago, we were with a different friend who was adopting an older deaf boy. We got quite the second looks with our Caucasian faces, a Haitian daughter, 2 Chinese sons, and sign language thrown in for good measure between Kimberly, her son Charlie, Ben, and I.

We had crossed over the wrong bridge at that time and ended up walking and walking for well over an hour and a half before we found it. Turns out we had come within about 20-30 yards at one time before we got discouraged and headed back. I refused to give up and asked a few people "McDonald's?" Most gave us blank looks, but finally two men pointed back to the direction from which we had just come.

As we were walking on that trip, we had an experience that turned our stomachs. There was a young woman who was about 18-20 year of age sitting on her boyfriend's lap on a retaining wall right next to the sidewalk we were on. He had rather bad acne and she was picking his face and then wiping it on a napkin where they would both examine it. I thought some of us were going to be sick. Thankfully, we had already eaten as I don't know if I could have eaten right away with that image in my mind. I guess you can chalk it up to cultural differences, but we were amazed that our mere presence brought long stares, but what these two were doing didn't even garner a second glance from passersby.
But I digress....

Going back to McDonald's with Wendy gave us a chance to chat and compare notes on our families and gave the boys and Micheline a chance to play with her boys in McDonald's very tiny play area. All of the McDonald's we have been to in China have been two to three stories high since there is no space on the crowded city streets to put a large restaurant. While her family ate an early dinner, I ordered ice cream for the kids and discovered yet another food that Caleb doesn't care for. Ben isn't wild about dairy products but will eat small amounts of ice cream. They both intensely dislike chocolate, so I guess these boys will have even more in common than I thought.

After heading back to the hotel, we picked up Jeff and Taylor for a little wandering around and dinner for our last night in Guangzhou. Part of me is sad to be leaving this little isolated adoptive world that calls itself Shamian Island, but another part is ready to move on to Beijing and leave the "touristy border town" feel that the island has since all of the shops cater to adoptive parents and get their bread and butter from what parents are willing to buy as souvenirs.

We picked up our laundry at one of the shops, and although it was a large chunk of change for a week's worth of dirty clothes from seven people, it was so worth it to know that we could leave for Beijing with clothes that had been freshly laundered.

Continued...