From the roof of the hotel.

Another shot from the roof.

The reason we were on the roof in the first place.

One of the nicer streets that lead away from the hotel. If you go one direction it's the pics above. Go the other and it's this.

Another shot of the nice street.

Hopefully this isn't a duplicate. These are seahorses that are being dried on the sidewalk. It was probably a 10x10' area covered. They are used for medicinal purposes.

Lucy's. We ate there when we got Carly also. It's Western food, a lot of American actor's pictures on the walls.

 Well, this is it. This will probably be my last time to update this page. Tomorrow, Thursday, we get up early and travel 2.5 hours by train to Hong Kong. We are just staying at an airport hotel, so there will probably not be much to do there... maybe we'll get to hit a pool again but it will be a really early day again on Friday for the 12 hour flight to the US.

 Today we went to the US Consulate to get Megan's Visa. There has been a bunch of paperwork that Mary has been submitting for us to the US government to get the Visa. When we went to the Consulate for Carly, it was just a 15 minute walk from Shimain Island and the White Swan. Since then, it has moved to an office building and it was a 45 minute drive.

 There were probably 40 or more kids, all getting their Visas at the same time as us. They basically just match your faces to the passport documentation that they have, issue the Visa, then make you raise your right hand and swear to the information you gave them on the forms. They do that as one big group, so there were 100 or so people in a little room for the swearing. The Consulate director said that their were people in the room representing 17 states from the US. One couple there were adopting their fifth child from China... Wow, and another that had twin girls they were adopting. We saw the couple that we had met in Beijing there, and some other people that we just recognized from the streets and shops. The director said that there have been something like 50,000 foreign Chinese adoptions since 1996, which is when he and his wife adopted their first child from China. They adopted their second in 2000, so the director knew what it was all about. "How things have changed" he said. When they adopted their first child, the comment that people made to them was "I didn't know you could even adopt children from China". Things indeed have changed. 

 That was the last official thing to do. We have a sealed brown envelope with papers in it that we cannot open, and must guard with our lives. Now, when we go through Immigration at Chicago, Megan will officially be a US citizen. Another cool thing to say. She will be a US citizen that opens new doors to her. More than what she probably may have had. It is going to be interesting, to say the least, to see how Carly and Megan take to each other. Poor Leslie just hopes that Megan takes to anybody!!! We might have to teach Carly how to change diapers and give baths. At least we won't have to worry about the stroller problem for a while. We can't wait to see Carly. She is probably going to look so much bigger to us at first... It's going to be quite a weekend when we get home!

 Oh..... so I told you all about the Rotoodle, Poodleweiler, whatever dog. So I wanted to take a little snooze today before the consulate appointment, and Leslie said, "Well, I'm going down to buy that dog a cup of food". I wish I could have gotten this on tape. She took a dixie cup down to "pet alley" with the intention of giving someone $5RMB (about 75 cents) for a cup of dog food so that she could dump it in front of the Rotoodle. I personally didn't like the idea, but Leslie.. dogs... nuff said. She came back disappointed though. The Rotoodle wasn't out when she was down there. It was a very nice thought though. Leslie believes that the dog has expired. I keep trying to tell her that the dog has been living that way for a long time, and unfortunately, probably will for much longer.  My wife the dog angel!

 We leave Hong Kong on Friday, 5/30, at 12:45pm and arrive in Chicago at 2:20pm... the same day (jet lag is gonna be a B@$*#). The flight from Chicago to St. Louis is United flight 5387, which is due to arrive at 6:11pm. We so look forward to being home!!!! We are really tired of brushing our teeth with bottled water!

 Thanks to all who sent e-mails... it was great to hear from you and be able to keep in touch!

 LOVE YOU CARLY!!!

Ken, Leslie and Megan