Day 5 - It's Official (in China's Eyes)!!

First breakfast with Mei Lin - what a mess! It didn't take her long to develop a new nickname - messy Mei Lin!  But we've been told that hired help prefer messy children to loud ones - we'll take a messy one any day! It was also our first breakfast at the provincial hotel and it's noticeably not as westernized a buffet as the previous hotel. Thankfully, they did cater to our needs as far as bacon and eggs are concerned, but as we soon discovered, feeding a child lessened our appetite - caring for her needs outweighed our needs.  In other words, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.  Sorry to contradict you, Spock, but I think you had it wrong! We foresee and look forward to a little bit of weight loss this week...

After accident clean up, it was on to the Civil Affairs Office to finalize the paperwork on the Chinese end. A handful of signatures, a few thumbprints and one footprint and she was ours! A brief trip to the notary's office for a couple signatures and a question and answer session meant the last of the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed and we were out of there. Back to the hotel and a round of naps for everybody!

After catching our second wind we hailed a taxi and made a trip to Walmart and McDonalds for a few necessities.  We have fulfilled our primary objective in coming to China by taking Mei Lin to experience her first trip to Ronald's House of Beef!   We took our parental obligation seriously. Upon stepping into McDonalds, the staff immediately reached for the picture menu to assist in bridging the language barrier.  If you thought Australia has a Great Barrier, try coming to China sometime!

We expect to have a little downtime for rest and relaxtion the next few days.