Tuesday in Guangzhou

(Veiw from Hotel)
Hello from Guangzhou!
Yesterday was a very long day for simply taking a 90 minute flight to Guangzhou; we left around 12:45 from our hotel in Wuhan and arrived at our new hotel around 6:20. We hadn't eaten since late morning and were all tired and rather crabby. All we did was find some food and get out PJ's and get to bed.

This is our second visit to the White Swan Hotel, one of the top hotels in China. It is a primary hotel for business travel as well as adoption travelors. There are atleast 50 families here each week for adoptions, mostly from the U.S., but also from other countries around the world. The Swan Room still exists, a room sponsored by Mattel that is filled with toys and lots of space to play and crawl around on the floor. Mattel also still sends a "Going Home" Barbie doll to each room, which is a blond Barbie holding a dark haired baby, designed just for adoptive families.

We were up around 6:30 and had the complimentary morning buffet that is absolutely huge and full of lots of great tasting Western food, just perfect for families that have five year old kids that haven't been eating very well. But just like in Wuhan, the meals for the rest of the day become a bit of a problem. In Wuhan, the food in the hotel was just too authentic for our tastebuds, and there were no other places to eat on the street, other than McDonalds or Pizza Hut, which we ate a lot of, along with snacks. (By the way, I got pretty sick on Monday night, we think from something I ate. Luckily, I was better by Monday morning and am back to eating normally and feeling good).

Here in Guangzhou, the food options are limited. The hotel offers much, but is VERY expensive. A hot dog at lunch is 98 RMB, which is about $12.25US. At dinner time that same hot dog costs 128 RMB. Congee, a staple for Chinese babies made of rice and water, was over $10 for a bowl. One of the families ate in the hotel last night and spent over $100 for the family. We've been eating at Lucy's about a block away, as are most other families; it runs about $25/meal and often, the choices we buy aren't being eaten as they don't taste like what we expect. Tomorrow we're ordering for a local delivery place that we used last time.

(On top of roof of Chen Academy)
We toured a Buddhist temple today and the Chen Academy, which used to be the Chen Family temple before it was converted into a museum. We'll upload pictures another night, but both were fascinating, even though we visited them four years ago when we were last here. Lastly, we went to a pearl and jade shop and did a good job on negotiating for some jewelry. This afternoon all of us took a two hour nap, then off to find dinner and a quiet night in the room.

Tomorrow morning Sarah has her mandatory check up at the local clinic, required to get our US visa.

Sarah is giving us lots of smiles and cuddles now, doesn't seem to be sad anymore, and is calling out to me as Mama and to Steve as Baba, using her Chinese words. She actually said "more" 2 times today when she wanted more food. We've been reinforcing the sign language for more and hungry and she seems to be getting one of them.

Just a few more days...we're counting them down and anxious to get home.


More tomorrow.

Ann, Steve, Emily and Sarah