Visit to Guangzhou Children's Hospital

We talked to our guide Shirely at breakfast yesterday and told her we'd like to have Samara checked out by a doctor. She just hasn't been herself. So at 11:00 am we hopped into two taxis (3 other babies and parents went along too). The taxi ride alone was quite the experience! The traffic is crazy here and yet all the cars are in good shape and you hardly ever see an accident. I honestly don't know how - because we see close calls everday. I guess they're used to it and it seems to work.

Anyway, we arrived at the Guangzhou Children's Hospital and there were about a million kids and babies there. We had to stand in one line to pay for the doctor's visit first. We could all go to the same area since all our babies had cold symptoms. When it was Samara's turn, the doctor said she had a throat infection and prescribed some meds for it. (we weren't surprised since a lot of the other babies in our group also have throat infections). When we asked about her ears (she seems to play with them a lot) we had to go back to pay for another doctor visit because that was in a different area. The ear doctor said she has a lot of wax in her ears and it's making them a little itchy. Then we had to go stand in another line to pay for the medication and then still another line to pick up the medication. The whole thing only took about an hour - all thanks to our guide Shirley. There's no way we would've been able to figure out the system on our own. Plus she got us in ahead of the other million people waiting . . . I'm not sure how or why but I won't ask questions! :) So we got some medication for her throat and something she can take orally for her constipation. They also gave us some Children's Motrin and some other things that I don't even know what they are. They seem to like to hand out drugs here. So for the two doctor's visits and five different medications, it came to a total of 52 yuan - which is around $1o Canadian! Unbelievable.

Also, there's no privacy. You're in a room with two doctors and people walking in and out. One lady with a small child was talking to Shirley (our guide) and pointing at Samara. She went on and on about her. Shirley told me that she was saying how beautiful Samara is. Also she said it's good that she has a wide forehead because that means she's smart. When we left, she pointed to Samara and gave me the thumbs up sign.

One of the babies in our group had to stay a little longer to get x-rays so Shirley gave us a piece of paper with our hotel name on it so we could get a cab back to our rooms. We finally got a cab (Mike and I had our own) and off we went. When he stopped to let us out, we weren't even at our hotel. I showed him the paper again and he said, "oh!" and off he went. The next time he stopped, he pointed and there was our hotel in the distance. We still had to walk about five minutes there - I'm not sure why he didn't drop us off in front door but the other group had the same thing. That whole cab ride only cost us 10 yuan which is a couple bucks canadian.

In the afternoon, we headed out to the police station to apply for a passport for Samara. It was a pretty quick procedure - nothing like waiting in line at the passport office in Hamilton!

Sorry about the lack of pictures in this post. Mike went out last night with another guy from our group to a camera store (another interesting experience) to get a new card for our camera. For some reason our old one wasn't working. So now we'll be able to take lots more pictures. I was told my someone (won't mention any names), "forget the pictures of China - we want to see more of Samara!" I'll see what I can do. :)

We're off to the Six Banyan Temple today so I'll try to post more pictures later.