China Day 11 - Passport Day
 

 Today we went back to the registration office to pick up the Sophie's Chinese passport, so that we could travel to Guangzhou,our final leg in this adoption journey.  They had a small ceremony where they handed us the passport and the office director wished us all happy and healthy lives with our new babies.

After that we came back to the hotel, had a quick lunch and were off to the Yellow Crane Tower, standing upon a hill in Wuhan.  The original tower was over 1700 years old, and this new one, rebuilt, was completed in 1986.  It is 51 meters high and naturally we had to climb to the top!

On the way some old man came running and grabbed Sophie's palm and started reading it.  Something about how special she was, with a long and fortunate life.  We thanked him and walked away and it turns out it was a service and he wanted 8 yuan.  So we gave it to him and he left us alone. 

We also saw this woman and her husband making some music, her singing through a bullhorn.  Next we climbed some stairs up to the tower.

Here are some pictures of the three of us at the base of the tower:
 

At the top here is a city view.  It's always smoggy here since this is an industrial town of steel and coal.

When we left some teenage girls came up to us and asked to have their picture taken with us.  Then the shopkeepers took Sophie out of our arms and went walking around to show all of the other shopkeepers in this little market.

Tonight we had a little pizza party from - where else? - Pizza Hut, with the other adoptive families and the adoption agency ordered a cake for their 1 year old birthday party since all of the babies are around that age range.

Tomorrow we fly go Guangzhou to await our US Consulate appointment on December 6.  We are glad to be leaving Wuhan as the air quality is poor, and although we've had a good time here, we're ready to move on!  We talked to Peter and Jack on the phone 2 days ago and they sounded so grown up!  We're sure looking forward to being home and seeing them again!