Hello Guangzhou!!

We left our hotel bright and early this morning for the Nanning airport. Our guide, Michael has been so great and had breakfast ready for us on our van ride to the airport. Maeve did great on the airplane and we waved goodbye to Guangxi province as we flew away. She quickly fell asleep shortly after take off and slept the rest of the way (only ~45 min flight). Guangzhou is in Guangdong Province. It is very different looking from Guangxi and Nanning. We are staying in a part of Guangzhou called Shamian Island. It sits along side the Pearl River and is quite a site! It is really beautiful and many of the buildings have British influence in their architecture. There is very little traffic here and it is the US adoption "capital" so it is full of US families and their newly adopted children. I am sooooo comfortable here. Everyone is very friendly and strikes up conversation with us everywhere we go.

We arrived at our hotel, the White Swan (soooooo nice!) around 10:30am, dropped our luggage and headed to Maeve's physical exam and visa picture. She was not happy for the picture and screamed the whole time, so the picture is horrible. Oh well! The physical exam is a total joke. It doesn't help that I am a pediatric nurse practitioner and Susie a pediatric nurse, but the "tests" they ran on Maeve were useless. The hearing test (if you can even call it that!) was to squeak a toy by her ear and see if she turned her head. Well, she is 17 months old, so if she sees you holding a toy by her head, she is going to turn it regardless of if it makes noises or not. Whatever!! Then the "doctor" who did the physical exam, just couldn't get over her hands and feet. He was making me very frustrated and he kept getting our guide to translate for him. He wanted to make sure we knew about her hands and feet (duh!!) and then told our guide that we need to make sure she has surgery when she arrives home. Wow, thank you for that wonderful advice. Anyway, Maeve was miserable the whole time and I couldn't get out of that rats hole fast enough!! Hopefully that will be our only poor experience in Guangzhou.

The weather continues to be chilly here, but better than Nanning. We had a great time today walking around the island and have already purchased some things. We mainly did a search of what everyone has to offer and then made our list back at the hotel of what we really want to get. We have lots of downtime this week until our visa appointment on Thursday so we have plenty of shopping time.

For dinner we met up with some of the other groups that we originally met in Beijing and headed to Lucy's (the "American" restaurant here). It was excellent. (I don't think I have had a bad meal in China) It was great to see everyone's babies and hear their stories. The adoption process is really an adventure and even here is China, every experience is different. These kids have been through unfathomable losses in their lives and their resiliance is inspiring. I don't honestly think I would be as strong as these children and to see them all so happy is pretty emotional!

After dinner we walked around some more and looked out over the Pearl River. It is gorgeous at night, all lit up with boats and lights. Our room over looks the river too and the view is amazing. We then found the play room in our hotel and let Maeve run off some energy. This hotel is just so nice and we are so happy to be here!!
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Maeve's first plane ride. One down, three more to go until we are home!
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This is the awful physical exam room that all adopted children must experience in order to come home. Thank goodness that is over!!
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Our lovely room, much bigger and more up to date than Nanning.
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Daytime view of the Pearl River from our hotel room. At night all the boats and buildings light up and sparkle.
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Nap is done and this girl is ready for dinner. She ate an entire bowl of congee, a piece of fried fish, frech fries and rice for dinner. She can really put some food away!
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Mommy and Maeve at Lucy's.
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Enjoying the views of the Pearl River at night.
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Having fun in the play room.
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She loves the abicus. In some of her pictures we were given she was playing with one too.
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Goodnight, I love Guangzhou!!