In Guangzhou....

Sorry for not getting post up yesterday....we were busy getting caught up on sleep, doing paperwork, and exploring the hotel and area around the hotel.

Friday night was our flight from Hangzhou to Guangzhou. Ellie did great on her first flight ever. Check out the picture of her hanging out in her seat. She got pretty fusy at the end of the 2 hour flight, and then fell asleep just as the plane touched down. Mackenzie and Ainsley also fell asleep a few minutes before landing.....great timing. They were all pretty upset when we woke them up to get off the plane. Our flight was late, as was the flight of another family being picked up at the same time, so we didn't get to the hotel in Guangzhou until somewhere around 11pm Friday.


Saturday morning we slept in a little and then hit the breakfast buffet in the hotel. It is awesome....especially for people who have been in some smaller Chinese cities all week. They have some great American breakfast foods....fried eggs, french toast, omlettes, fresh fruit, bacon, scrambled eggs.....it was great!


After breakfast we were off to get Ellie's visa pictures and then her visa physical. The physical is pretty basic....height, weight, check her ears and hearing, read her medical history and ask us a few questions about what Ellie is doing. Here is a picture of the clinic.

After the physical Steph and Ellie went back to the room to rest a little. I took Kenzie and Ainsley to a little playground and then we "explored" the hotel. We are staying at the White Swan hotel. It is beautiful...I think it may be the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in. Here are some pictures of the view from our room.


We tried to swim in the pool in the afternoon. It was about 80 deg in the air, but I think the water was 50 deg. It was freezing! Needless to say, we didn't stay in the water very long. We got out and laid on the chairs in the nice sunshine. Mackenzie looked over at me and said "this is splendid."

I had tons of paperwork to do at 3:30. The girls all took naps as I went to the lobby to fill out paperwork.

We had dinner at "Lucy's", which is an American food restaurant just down from the hotel. The whole area around the hotel caters to American families here adopting. Lots of little shops and that sort of thing. And a Starbucks just around the corner.


We are off to breakfast, then some sightseeing with the group today. Hopefully we'll post more pictures later tonight.