Good bye China

Today was our last full day in China. We decided to go to the Guangzhou Zoo this morning with our guides Grace and Paul and the Thompson family. This zoo was MUCH nicer and cleaner than the Zhengzhou zoo. The animals were in good shape and obviously well taken care of, compared to Zhengzhou. It was a glaring example of the amount of poverty in Henan compared to this city. Guangzhou is the 3rd largest city in China. It has about 13 million people, compared to about 10-15 years ago when the city only had 6 million. The place is huge and I can't imagine how anyone can firgue out where they are going on the streets. There are a lot of new apartment buildings. But even though they are new, people still hang their laundry outside on their little balconies. Rob says I would fit right in. Anyway, back to the zoo...the first exhibit we say was the monkeys. Kendall flipped out and started yelling and getting all excited as she watched the monkeys swinging from the roofs of their cages. We also saw the tigers, lions, bears, including the panda, brown and black bear, elephants, rhinos, and much more. I wanted to take a photo of her with a panda bear statue, but she freaked out, screaming and crying. I think she thought it was a real bear. She was good and pretty well behaved, even though it was unbelieveablly hot and humid. We're talking shirt and shorts soaked with sweat. We came back around noontime and had some time to relax before leaving for the US Consulate to take the oath and receive Kendall's visa to enter the US. The oath was really nothing, except us saying that we swore and affirmed that the information we gave was true and correct. No big deal. We receive the "sealed envelop" which cannot be opened until we go through the immigration line in Newark. Once the officer stamps Kendall's passport in Newark, she will be an automatic US citizen, but will lose her Chinese citizenship. Her life in the US will be so much different than it would be here...I can't imagine the opportunities she will have and things she will experiece that she never would have had a chance to do here, especially being an orphan. I just hope one day she realizes why why we did what we did to bring her home.Our next post will be from the good ol' USA, from our own house. Our flight to Beijing leaves at 9:00 am so we must leave the hotel by 6:30 to get to the airport. The flight to the US leaves at 3:45 pm and lands in Newark at 5:30 pm on Friday afternoon. Please keep us in your thoughts as we endure a very long and probably trying day of travel. We cannot wait to come home. It has been a unique, eye-opening, sometimes sobering, and life changing experience for us to visit this country and be able to have the privilege to bring one of her daughter's home with us. It is an experience we will not soon forget.