Friday, October 18, 2002

While Kevin watched Malia, I had to spend the morning in the notarization office, proofreading the documents. The most exciting part was the taxi rides to and from the office. The traffic is INSANE. I've never seen anything like it. Pedestrians will walk out into 5-6 lanes of traffic---and no one even slows down. Motorcycles will veer through the tiniest spaces between cars and buses. Taxis will dart in front of huge buses. Buses will go from lane to lane with no warning. It almost seems unreal---like you are in a Hollywood movie with stunt drivers all around you. The strange thing is, there is relatively little honking and no one seems upset while they drive here. Even when someone gets cut off, they just accept it and keep on going. One person in our group saw a taxi hit a guy on a bike. The guy on the bike just got up, brushed himself off, and kept on going. No words were even exchanged!

In the afternoon, Evie, Kevin and I took a walk around the West Lake. The lake is spectacular. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in China. In 1275, Marco Polo called HangZhou the most beautiful city in the world. Also, HangZhou is sometimes called the "Geneva of the East." The lake is surrounded by high, jagged mountains on three sides.

Where we walked, the parks were beautifully landscaped. Everything was very peaceful and there were tea houses along the lake. Again, many people approached us to touch Malia and give us encouragement. Even though we didn't speak the same language, it was interesting that we could still get our points across.

And finally, in the afternoon we got Malia's passport! We also got her immunization records, but of course they were in Chinese. They will be translated when we get to GuangZhou.


In the evening, Nancy and Daphne took us to a Chinese restaurant. As everywhere we've been in China, the food was GREAT. At the restaurant, a waitress grabbed Malia from Kevin's arms and took her to show her family. Malia was calm as long as she could see Kevin. I was really proud of her.