Monday's trek to Shamian Island

| View Show | Create Your Own

On Monday we went to Shamian Island for Olivia's visa medical exam. She did pretty well, but didn't care for the tongue depressor or for the part where we had to remove some clothes to be examined. Noting that Olivia had already had corrective heart surgery, the doctor was surprised--and so were we--that she still has a heart murmur. Hopefully it's not anything that will require more surgery. We also asked about a lump on her forehead, but after getting a second opinion from a surgeon, the doctor said it feels like bone, not a wound. They suggested getting a CT scan at home, so hopefully that's not a big deal either...

After getting through the medical exam, we let the girls play at a park to help Olivia relax again. She's really enjoyed the slide and the girls had fun playing together. The hard part was dragging her away to eat lunch at a restaurant called Lucy's. Later we found out that others had been warned not to eat there due to families getting sick, but two days later, we're still fine.

Since all American adoptive families have to go through Shamian Island for the medical exam, quite a niche market for adoptive families has built up there! It's kind of a neat place and it's fun to run into so many other families with their newly adopted children. Not only is Shamian Island unique in it's clientele, it also looks very different than the "real" China since it was once a British colony and has British architecture.

Our hotel is about a 10 minute walk from Shamian Island, away from the tourist shops, but right on a pedestrian street with modern shops for the locals. In order to get to Shamian Island, we walk through a pet market and a Chinese medicine market, all of which are just tiny storefronts that overflow into an alley. As always, we draw quite a bit of attention as we traipse through.