Cassreinos ready for last day in Guangzhou

** Adoption countdown: 1 day until Pam, Terry and Matthew return home **

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

GUANGZHOU, China (Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008, 7:40 a.m.) – These beds at the White Swan Hotel are horrible.

I just woke from a fitful sleep in our hotel room, tossing and turning all night on top of what amounts to a rock. Pam slept well, as did Matthew. But, man, this bed is hard.

I long for our Select Comfort.

Well, Pam and Matthew remain in bed asleep (shhh, don’t wake them),

As soon as they wake and we eat breakfast at the hotel restaurant, we plan to head to a local, nearby, outdoor market in Guangzhou where they sell medicinal items.

Now I’m not quite sure what that means, but I’ve been told it’s fascinating. Maybe I can find something for this sinus infection from hell that won’t go away nearly a month after I contracted it.

Then we plan to do some last-minute shopping before we eat dinner and return to the room to fit everything we got during our trip here into three huge suitcases.

In less than 24 hours, our long trip home begins at the Guangzhou airport. More than 30 hours later, Pam, Matthew and I will arrive in Jackson and begin preparing for what undoubtedly will be a memorable Christmas 2008.

Stop back by our blog later today for new posts and more photos.

E-Mail Returns: I took a chance on Monday and restored my laptop computer to the state it was in one day last week. Then, when I restarted, the e-mail files I thought had evaporated were suddenly there. I don’t get it, but I’m not going to complain. My guess is that an automatic Windows update screwed things up.

Copyright 2008 by Terry R. Cassreino. All rights reserved.

View photo gallery of Tuesday's activities

** Adoption countdown: 2 days until Pam, Terry and Matthew return home **

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

GUANGZHOU, China (Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008, 8:10 p.m.) – Is it possible to become burned out on Chinese food while visiting China for the past two weeks?

The food here is incredible, no doubt about that. But I think it’s time for something different, maybe a little bit of Mexican food from El Potrillo – like a quesadilla or shrimp fajitas.

Here, you don’t have much in the way of Mexican. And American food is iffy at best – like Lucy’s, the American-style restaurant down the block from the White Swan that’s so-so.

McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Poppa John’s and Starbucks are plentiful – but they aren’t exactly what I’d like to eat.

Anyway, tonight Pam, Matthew and I returned the same Chinese restaurant where we ate roasted pigeon a couple of nights ago. We had a pork dish tonight, along with fried noodles.

And, like the other night, it was good and dinner cost less than $20.

Dinner and obtaining Matthew’s immigrant visa dominated today’s activities. And I chronicled a lot of it in a photo gallery you will find at the bottom of this blog post.

Wednesday is our last day in Guangzhou, so we hope to make the best of it.

Copyright 2008 by Terry R. Cassreino. All rights reserved.

DIRECTIONS: Click photo to enlarge. Toggle photo captions with button in left-hand corner of photo gallery slide show.

Cassreinos receive Matthew’s immigrant visa

** Adoption countdown: 2 days until Pam, Terry and Matthew return home **

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

GUANGZHOU, China (Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008, 7:40 p.m.) – It took less than a minute, but was a fitting end – well, almost end – to an emotional journey for two Mississippi parents looking to build their family by adopting an orphan child.

Pam, Matthew and I hopped aboard a White Swan Hotel bus late this afternoon, joined a group of other Americans adopting Chinese children and headed to the U.S. Consulate.

There, we received Matthew’s U.S. immigrant visa and immigration packets we need for him to enter the country. And we took a brief oath swearing that all of the information we provided for the adoption was correct.

A copy of the packet is in the picture on the right. That was it. Nothing else to do.

All we have left is to keep the official packet sealed and untouched until we arrive at our U.S. entry point – which, in our case, is Detroit. As soon as our plane touches down and we go through immigration, Matthew automatically becomes a U.S. citizen.

This, along with a meeting this morning with Holt International Children’s Services staff, dominated our second-to-last day in Guangzhou before we begin our long, long journey home.

And believe me, after more than two weeks away, Pam and I are more than ready to go home and sleep in our own bed.

The White Swan is a great hotel, but the beds here are literally as hard as a rock. I don’t think I’ve ever slept on anything harder except when I interned at The Clarion-Ledger in 1984 and slept on the floor of a reporter’s Jackson apartment.

On Wednesday, Pam and I plan to do one last shopping tour in Guangzhou, including hitting the Pearl and Jade Market. We also hope to visit a local market down the road before we return to the White Swan Hotel to pack.

We must be up and out of the room by 5:30 a.m. Thursday in order to catch our flight to Tokyo. There, we’ll change planes, head to Detroit and then to Jackson.

We still are scheduled to arrive on Northwest Flight 2978 at 9:21 p.m. on Thursday night, Dec. 18, 2008, at the Jackson-Evers International Airport.

Copyright 2008 by Terry R. Cassreino. All rights reserved.