Guangzhou Here We Come!!!

We said goodbye to our wonderful guide Maggie last night and left Taiyuan and had a two hour flight to Guangzhou.

Our sweet guide Maggie. We really enjoyed getting to know her and spending the week with her.

Hadley did great on the plane. She was her usual, happy, smiley self. She charmed people all around us. Thank goodness the lady next to us was friendly because Hadley was totally in her personal space, touching all of her stuff the entire flight. Our new guide Aron (this Aron is a girl. Easy for us to remember her name) met us at the airport and had a driver take us to the Garden Hotel. As we pulled off the highway and onto the street where the hotel was located we were surrounded by beautiful, colorful flowers, grass and palm trees. This was a beautiful sight after the week we had spent in Taiyuan. We pulled into the hotel and were in awe. It was beautiful, the area around the hotel is clean and there are stores and restaurants within walking distance. We got checked in and were shown to our room. It is a beautiful suite with a separate bedroom and sitting area and an awesome bathroom. I will get some pictures of our room later for you all to see.

We slept great and were feeling much better this morning. We headed to the breakfast buffet we have heard so much about and we were not disappointed. It was the most either of us have eaten since leaving home. Here is just a sampling of what I ate...scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns with ketchup, blueberry yogurt, a croissant, a chocolate donut, a piece of toast, and a handful of Fruit Loops. Admittedly I shared some with Hadley but I consumed the majority of it. Hadley also had a bowl of congee which is a rice porridge. It looked awful but babies here often eat it and she seemed to enjoy it. She is a great eater and has not turned down anything we have offered her. She only has six front teeth (four on top, two on bottom) but can happily eat anything you give her. She does have a fear of high chairs. This was the first time we attempted to put her in a high chair and she screamed. We managed to calm her down and she sat and ate for a few minutes before ending up on our laps. She gets overwhelmed in crowds and there were a lot of people around so that didn't help. She is the same with the stroller. She gets nervous and wants to get out after two or three minutes.

After breakfast we went outside to take a walk around the hotel grounds. There is a four story waterfall and a huge pond with big coy fish. It was so nice to be outside enjoying some nature after spending a week in Taiyuan.

Behind the hotel standing near the coy pond

Daddy and Hadley in front of the waterfall

After our short walk we headed to the lobby to go in search of water. We ran into two other families in the lobby, one of whom I recognized from our Facebook Adoption group. We were so excited to be able to talk to some fellow Americans who are going through a similar experience. We look forward to spending the week with the other families. We have scheduled a happy hour date tonight!

We headed across the street to the grocery store and stocked up on water, Heineken, coke and a bag of pretzels. We laughed at our purchases and figure we can survive on the breakfast buffet and liquids and be just fine. We headed back to the room to do some laundry. We each brought enough clothes for about a week. Our clothes smelled like Taiyuan (which is not the most pleasant smell) so we had to wash everything. I decided the bathtub was the easiest way to go. Aaron saw me hunched over the bathtub washing and insisted it made much more sense if I got in and stomped the clothes like I was mashing grapes. So there I was stomping dirty laundry in the hotel bathtub sans pants. There is a video of this but I will spare you all from seeing me doing laundry with my feet in my underwear. The only problem with washing so many clothes is finding a place to dry all of these clothes. There are clothes hanging on anything and everything. I hope the maids don't come in and see!

The aftermath of bathtub laundry

...and some more here

We enjoyed McDonalds for lunch. It tasted exactly the same as McDonalds does in the US which was a welcomed surprise. I don't even like McDonalds that much and and almost never eat it at home but it was delicious. Hadley had her first chicken nugget and obviously loved it! Hadley is taking a nap and Aaron and I are watching The Katy Perry Movie on HBO. We have several English channels here so we will not be forced to watch any more documentaries about dams. Katy Perry is slightly more interesting. We are just hanging out for the rest of the day and having dinner and drinks with some of the other families. We will meet our group in the lobby tomorrow morning to head over for the kid's medical appointments.

Hadley emptying our suitcase

Our matching "Love All" t-shirt compliments of Sara Tyler who is a fellow adoptive mommy fundraising to bring home their son Beau.

Hadley likes to pucker and give kisses. She does it all the time. She even offered them to strangers on the airplane. Clearly we need to work on who is appropriate to kiss and who is not.