Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Another very long day.  Our guide and I left at 7:40 for the U.S. Embassy.  Aidan had to stay with LB because as a non-citizen he cannot enter the premises.  They could not help us and said that only the Chinese embassy in the U.S. could.  But we tried the Chinese embassy in Beijing just in case, and they confirmed that they could not help us.  So we returned to the hotel, did a flurry of copying and faxing, and arranged for a FedEx pickup of our Power of Attorney to be sent to the courier in D.C.  From there we went to the bank to get a USD bank check for the fee and after waiting half an hour found out that only the main office could do it.  So we were off to the main office where it took over an hour to get a bank check.  Getting a taxi back was a problem, but eventually we arrived at the hotel about five minutes after the FedEx guy did, managed to find the right part of the building where he was, and got the forms off in the mail with the check.  They should reach the courier Wednesday morning, so they could be back here by Friday morning.  That will mean at least a week's delay in our adoption, though, and it will mean that we stay here alone without our travel mates.