Halfway there - we've made it to Guangzhou

We've made it to Guangzhou.   We received Chloe's passport 1:30pm Friday.   We needed to get her passport in her home (i.e. birthplace) province before traveling to Guangzhou.    For casual followers, there are U.S. Consulate offices is many cities across China.   But only one of those offices has the authority to issue entry visas to the United States, and that office is located in Guangzhou.   Chloe, while officially ours in the eyes of China as of Tuesday February 2, is still a Chinese citizen.   The fact that she is our daughter does not automatically make her a U.S. citizen, so she cannot simply board a plane to the U.S. like any U.S. citizen.     She must be granted an entry visa, and that will happen here in Guangzhou.

 

Guangzhou, or at least Shamian Island which is located in Guangzhou, is something of a home away from home for us.  We've been here twice.   It is a highly westernized location.  We built a family in this city.    It feels like we are half-way home, even though we still are 19+ hours of plane ride and untold hours of layover away from home.

 

It's been a difficult couple of days.   Chloe came down with a monster case of diarrhea, complete with diaper blowout.   A few incidents were so bad that we decided to cut her clothes off, rather than pull them off and dragging fresh awful all over her in the process.   Yuck.    But we have come to the conclusion that the issue is lactose intolerance, a fairly common problem for Chinese people.    Cassie has no issues, but Chloe apparently does.   We've switched her to soy-based formula as of today.   The next few days will be telling.    There is a doctor's clinic located right in our hotel, and we are prepared with a handful of electrolyte delivery options, so we'll be ok one way or another.

 

I meant to post a few new pics last night, but we were locked in a knock-down, drag-out battle with Chloe to get her to sleep.   When she finally settled down, I started to type up a post, but she started fussing, so I called it quits for the evening.

 

Once again, we're exhausted, so only a few pics tonight.