Our Journey to Isabella Yong Mei: Dec 8th, 2012 - Medical & Visas trip in Guangzhou

Last night mei mei fell asleep again with no grieving. She has not grieved in a few days and she seems to be happier as the day’s progress. Every day that goes by we are falling more in love with this sweet girl.

We set a wake-up call for 6:30am. We had to meet Grace, the Cole family and the other family from Alaska down at the lobby by 8:30am to head to the clinic to get the girls their physical.

Breakfast was MUCH better. The hotel and buffet is westernized and much like the buffet in Hong Kong. Mei Mei is doing great with her eating.

After breakfast we all met down in the lobby and headed toward the clinic. We walked into this nice building and headed to the 5^th floor. Upon entering this floor we immediately went to this room to have Mei Mei’s picture taken for her visas. This was pretty quick and then we headed to the other side of the medical area.

There were many Chinese families waiting to see a doctor. There was a section that was just for adoptive families. We all headed to this area and waited to be seen by the doctors.

The physical check consisted of three areas. One was the vital sections area (where they took her height and weight) the second was the ear, nose & throat area, lastly, we moved to the general area (where they checked her abdominal area and the rest of her body). Everything checked out well.

We probably spent about 1.5 hours at the medical office and then we headed back to the hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel, Grace told us that Josh & Lily (the owners of CCAI) were in town and they wanted to meet us. They live in Denver Colorado; the headquarters were CCAI is based out of. They were in Guangzhou for staff training. We met them and they wanted to see the babies. Mei Mei was sleeping so they did not get to see her awake. We took some pictures with them, they are really nice. The rest of the afternoon was free time and we could choose to do whatever we wanted.

We choose to stay in the room while Mei Mei was sleeping. After she woke up we got ready and took a taxi to Shamian Island.

Shamian Island^], formerly known as Shameen Island or Shamin Island, from its Cantonese pronunciation, is a sandbank island in the Liwan District of Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, China. The island's name literally means "sandy surface" in Chinese. We visited “Jenny’s Place”. My mom seriously recommended it. Here I bought some gifts and we bought Mei Mei like 7 squeaky shoes. They are so cute. Jenny had some Christian scriptures around her store and I asked her if she was a Christian and she said she is and has been for 8 yrs. now. I then got alittle bolder and said so you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and she said yeah! I thought that was way awesome. She says that she goes to a Christian church on the Island. She was at the store with her husband Mark and her beautiful little son. She gave me a necklace with a cross on it for free and also a Chinese CD as a free gift to my mom for recommending her. She also gave Mei Mei a ball for free. She is a very nice lady and I told her that I would tell all my friends to visit her shop when in Shamian Island.

After spending some time at Jenny’s place, she had her friend walk us over to “Lucy’s” (an American Diner) the food was yummy. I had some fried chicken and French fries, Herb had a burger with fries and Mei Mei had egg noodle soup, mashed potatoes, my French fries with ketchup, my chicken and an apple juice.

After lunch, we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the China Hotel. It was a successful afternoon.

We barely had any time when we got back to the hotel before it was time to meet Grace and the rest of our group for dinner. I took mei mei a quick bath and then we met Grace downstairs by 6:00pm.

We all walked about 10 minutes to a nearby Chinese restaurant. When we got there, they put our group in a private room and Grace ordered all kinds of food for us to try. They put the food on a lazy susan and you spin the table and grab what you want. I like the way the Chinese eat and I wish we had this method in America. We ordered Goat meat, which herb and I passed on but little Mei Mei ate of course. There was like noodle potatoes, this bean looking thing (that was delicious) some vegetables and just a ton of other things. It was good food.

After dinner we headed back to hotel and relaxed, watched a little TV and then went to bed. The days are passing quickly, which I like because we are ready to go home and see our family and friends.

Tomorrow, we are doing a sight-seeing tour into the city with 4 other families. We are going to visit the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, Temple of Chen family and also we will be visiting a market place where they sell authentic Jade.