This afternoon (Tuesday 6/18) we decided to take one last little outing before our time in China comes to an end. We went to a place called Shamian Island which is a tourist destination with older hotels built in a European architectural style. Honestly, it seems like a rinky-dink area since when you walk down the street you get accosted by shop owners who all sell exactly the same stuff at "very good prices."
We only had a couple of hours before we needed to be back at our hotel to meet Kathy to get the girls' visas for travel on Wednesday. The concierge desk at our hotel helped us by giving us a card with Shamian Island written on it so we could hand it to the taxi driver. Of course, they were equally thoughtful to give us another to return to the hotel.
The taxi ride only took about 15 minutes and I guess the driver just randomly chose a place to let us off. We got a couple of sandwiches at Subway, which actually seemed like a treat at the time, and walked around for a while.
I don't know why, but we saw no less than four photo shoots in progress during the 90 minutes we were there. They all seemed a bit sketchy and we really wondered who was paying for them. Anyway, it was nice to walk around on our own.
With about 30 minutes to go before we had to get back to meet Kathy, we stopped at a hotel where there was a sign for a taxi line. The guy there told us he would help us to get a cab. While we were standing there we met a very nice woman from England who had just adopted a 2-year-old daughter. They had just been united the day before and the girl was full of silliness, running around and laughing. Probably one of the up moments in the ups and downs of getting to know one another.
Time went by and we were still waiting and waiting for a taxi. The hotel employee kept calling someone on his radio, but there were no taxis at all in the area since it was rush hour. I was getting anxious about missing our appointment with Kathy. I used the hotel business center to call our hotel to see if someone could find her to let her know we were running late. I don't know if that message ever went through.
As we were waiting there, a family arrived who were doing a "heritage tour" with their 10-year-old daughter. We ran into a number of families on such trips, but we had met this particular family when we were in Nanchang also and Stacey had spoken to them there. It was so funny to see them now in Guangzhou. Anyway, they had a guide who was helping them with their travel logistics and spoke English, so Stacey asked him about the taxi situation. He was very helpful in explaining the delay, but he also asked us about our situation.
He offered to call our hotel again to make sure they got the message and found Kathy. But then he asked us what adoption agency we were using and when we told him CCAI he said he had a phone number in his phone for someone from CCAI. It was not Kathy's, but he did call Jason and asked for him to call Kathy's cell phone with the message. Then the same guy went out and tracked down a cab that had gone by us and let passengers off at a hotel about five blocks away. He had gotten the hotel employee where we were waiting to call ahead to the security guards at the other hotel to tell them to hold the cab there for us. It was crazy, but so helpful!
Anyway, after all his assistance, Kathy knew that we were running late and thankfully it was not a problem.
Out of 1.3 billion people in China we found a person who had a number in his cell phone to get a message to the woman who was waiting for us. Amazing.
This photo has nothing to do with Shamian Island, but I know people look at this blog mostly for photos of the girls anyway.
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