Wednesday, September 8, 2010
We got up this morning and had breakfast and went walking around Shamian Island. We bought a few souvenirs and got some pictures. We came back to the hotel room and had lunch in the room. Olivia took a nap and we packed up a few things.
Grace met us at 2:00 pm in the lobby to take us the American Consulate. On the way to the Consulate, we picked up another family. The Consulate reception area was about a hour drive from our hotel. We arrived at the Consulate at 3:00 pm. Grace got us checked in and we sat in the waiting room. She told us that they will start calling families up front to sign some documentations at 3:30 pm. They had a little play area in the back of the room, so Olivia played with a few toys until everyone started showing up then she just watched all of the kids play. When it was 3:30 pm we moved to our seats to wait for Olivia's Chinese name to be called. They had just started calling names and there were about 50 families in the waiting room, so we figured it would take a long time before they got to Olivia's name. Olivia had to go to the restroom and when we were coming out, Grace came flying in to the restroom telling me that they had just called Olivia's name and we hurried to where Kevin was. The officer gave Kevin a paper to sign and checked our passports. After his signature we took a seat and waited for everyone else to go up front. When all of the names had been called, the Director of Immigrations Visa talked to us about the immigration papers. When she finished, she had all of us to stand and raise our right hand repeating after her saying that we had given the U.S. Government, to best of our knowledge, correct information on our adoption papers. She said we would be able to pick up Olivia's Visa tomorrow and we would be given a brown sealed envelope. We are not to open it. When we arrive in Chicago and go through immigration, they will ask for the envelope. We were not allowed to take pictures in the Consulate, so after the oath ceremony we took our picture in the front lobby in front of the Consulate sign.
Olivia on the way to the Consulate
After we left the Consulate, we returned back to the hotel and went for a walk around the area. We went to Lucy's for supper, but the wait was way too long, so we stopped at Thai restaurant for supper. We returned back to our room and got ready for bed. Tomorrow we will pick up Olivia's Visa and ride a train to Hong Kong.
No comments:
Post a Comment