On Wednesday, Elijah was a bit fussy, so we decided to keep close to the hotel. After breakfast, we took him over to the playground for a long play time. There were lots of parents and grandparents with their small children out playing too. It is funny to see a baby in split pants going down the slide. Imagine the skin sticks on that one! I put Elijah in jeans and a tee shirt to cut down on the comments. One child there was wearing quilted split pants, 2 shirts and a jacket. There was only one other tee shirt there. The rest were wearing long sleeves. Bizarre.
The people were very friendly. One grandpa spoke to Elijah in Cantonese and encouraged him to go down the slide. Elijah listened and did what he was told. He moved Elijah from element to element physically at times. Elijah did not object, but didn't seem thrilled either. At one point, he put Elijah on the teeter totter, and Elijah wasn't happy. We helped him off, gave him a quick hug, then helped him back on. He was very happy then. The child outlasted 2 other children on the teeter totter, then Greg pushed the other side up and down for a long time, then a girl about 5 years old got on. This teeter totter is metal and bounces off of tires buried into the ground. When the 5 year old got on, Elijah was, of course, not heavy enough to counter balance her. So she started pushing harder until he went all the way down. They were bouncing off of the tires, Greg was holding Elijah on, and Elijah thought it was wonderfully fun. His face lit up, and he laughed and laughed. He's gonna love Kings Island!
This afternoon I got Elijah's Chinese name Qing Zu Bin written in characters and framed in his room. I want him to be able to recognize his name in Chinese as part of his heritage. It looks great.
Yesterday they issued his passport, today our travel coordinators will go to the consulate appointment at 9:30 to apply for his visa. We do not have to go, but we do have to stay in the room in case they have any questions or need us to come down afterall. They say that does not happen often, but it does happen. Tomorrow is our swearing in. The group for swearing in is a large one, so they are splitting into 2 groups with us in the first one at 3:30. Gee, I wonder why the group is so large this time? Odd. We will be going to the swearing in with all of our luggage since the train station is right across the street from the consulate. We will be leaving Guangzhou on the 6:20 train, arriving in Hong Kong shortly after 8. We have a hotel in Kowloon for Friday night. We will take the Metro Train Airport Express to the Hong Kong Airport to fly out at 10 am Saturday morning.
We have a 3 hour layover in Tokyo, so I had emailed my friend Paul from high school who lives in Tokyo to see if he could meet us. Unfortunately, he will be in Bangkok, Thailand. I am so bummed. I haven't seen him in years.
Our time here is rapidly drawing to a close. This is our last full day, and I imagine tomorrow will be spent packing. I am so looking forward to returning home. Thank you for all your prayer support. I'm sure that is part of what is keeping me sane. God has truly sustained us during this adventure in our lives.
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