It’s 12:30 p.m. and I’m sitting quietly on one bed while Juno’s sleeping noisily on the other.  K and T just came in from swimming and headed back out to the little market off the lobby to buy something cheap and cheerful for lunch (read:  noodles in a cup and an Americano from the ubiquitous Starbucks).

Every morning we’re treated to an awesome buffet style breakfast that caters to a great variety of tastes – from Japanese to Thai to Vietnamese to Chinese and western –  so it’s been a nice way to start off the day.  The breakfast comes with the room, which is good because last night I made the mistake of bringing K down for a buffet dinner in the same restaurant while T stayed with the baby, and it cost us 616 Yuen, which is roughly $100. All vegetables, cream of corn soup, duck breast pasta (without the duck breast) and three mini-desserts:  a profiterole, a macaroon and a small bowl of strawberry ice cream with gummy-somethings in it for the ‘boy’ that our server insisted on his having as we were on our way out the door.  For 616 Yuen, it was the least she could do – pile on another dessert.  Had we realized how expensive our buffet was, we would have brought down our duffle bag and filled it up with food.

Guangzhou has a decidedly different feel and look than Hong Kong in that it’s got big, wide boulevards everywhere without the network of alleyways that we loved, nor the skyscrapers or harbour.  This is a business town and our hotel is in the centre of it.  Since we’ve arrived, we’ve been ferried around in a little mini-van tour thing, driven by the kindly Mr. Lui, and our guide, Hailey.  We feel quite removed from the action and have just accepted that this leg will be different from the first.

Besides, we have a different type of action and it’s called Juno.  She’s 2 and a half but us westerners would guess her age at about 18 months, maybe less.  She’s non verbal and eats a mixture of formula and rice cereal from a bottle four times a day.  They said they’ve added the cereal portion ‘because she’s growing’.  We were told she’ll eat meat mixed into rice but so far she hasn’t with us.  In fact, she doesn’t even put her mouth around the spoon as though she doesn’t understand what’s expected of her.  But, thank goodness for small blessings – today after our big theatrical showing of how much we ALL LOVE BANANAS, she took a few pieces from my finger and seemed to like it.  We don’t even know if she knows how to chew.

We were given the opportunity to visit her orphanage yesterday.  The staff made us feel very welcomed and it was evident that there was a lot of love and affection for the children.  It’s a lovely building with indoor-outdoor spaces and, like all buildings in China that house children – schools, hospitals, etc. there was big security around it. Nevertheless, we were thankful for the demonstration of the porridge-mixing because until then we couldn’t seem to get her to eat what we were making.  They gave us free reign to take photos and we exchanged email addresses so we can keep in touch.  They were also generous enough to give us crucial information about our daughter’s past, which we didn’t know and won’t disclose here.  The staff asked us not to post anything on the internet and out of respect for their wishes we won’t.  All in all it was a good trip; we’ve set ourselves up with a link to Juno’s past that we can maintain, which we’re so thankful for.  Oh, and they gave us CDs with her favourite music.  Now she swings and sways and claps her hands to the music that we play from our laptop.  All we’re missing is the full length mirror that she used to watch herself dance in the orphanage.

We’ve spent the last two days filing government papers, paying fees and today is the last step in our Guangzhou list of responsibilities.  After today, we just wait for Juno’s Chinese passport, which she’ll travel back to Canada with.  We fly to Beijing on Saturday, which is where we finalize the adoption and get her travel Visa to bring her into Canada.

In about an hour we’ll be whisked away by Mr. Lui and Hailey in the mini-van and taken to the police station for our final Chinese administrative responsibility (bring no gifts!).  Juno will be unsafely strapped underneath a lap belt and I’ll hang on to her as we round the corners and stop suddenly as all cars cut one other off all the time, always, every day, every minute of the day.  We’ll count our blessing because yesterday Mr. Lui was unable to take us to the orphanage so we hired a taxi.  Not a seatbelt to be found as I hung onto my dear son for his life and M cradled our dear daughter in his arms.  I kept hoping that the plastic shield that divided the back seat from the front wouldn’t be too painful as we four hurtle through it when we rear-end the bus that would inevitably cut us off.

Now that I’ve gotten old, I no longer think that bad things only happen to other people, but a lot of good things have happened to us because of China. If I believed in the lord I would say, “Oh Lord, please give us the grace to survive another day on China’s roads, seatbeltless.”  But then when I look around I see that millions of godless people survive these roads every day on every manner of vehicle, bicycle, wagon so I’m probably safe in thinking the odds are we’re going to be okay.

As always please see more of todays pictures at www.flickr.com/budbug.