Guangzhou and the White Swan

It's Monday morning in Guangzhou, and we're waiting a few minutes before we head downstairs to meet group 1080 and head out at 10:30am for Ellie's medical exam.

Let's see, when we last left off... we were getting ready to fly from Changsha to Guangzhou. We all made it to the airport safe and sound, and Ellen and Joanne helped us get our checked bags through and get our tickets. The Knights were 6 kilograms over baggage weight (20 kilos per bag, 80 total for the family), but our guides worked with the airline and convinced them that the groups should be weighed as a whole, and the group came out just underweight, so no fees for us!

I've decided the security metal scanners in China are better than the US- they pick up on smaller amounts of metal... I beep here just for my belt and jewelry (pair of pearl earrings, 3 rings, bracelet, and small necklace), and I never beep in the US for that.

Unfortunately we totally missed lunch, so we all shared a bag of potato chips. Jordan didn't get a nap either, so wasn't feeling too hot and was getting impatient about getting on the plane. The most excitement we had was the fact that the computer randomly assigned seats to everyone for the groups, so we all had seats away from each other- including Jordan. Luckily, as Caroline was getting Jordan seated (who did NOT want to sit by herself, understandably), the flight attendant let Caroline have the seat next to her. It was an interesting game of musical chairs watching people try to find seats near other family or group members, and it seemed that there was alot of seat switching among the passengers not part of the group as well. Then, after that, the flight attendants did some rearranging of their own since several rows had 2 parents with babies on the row as well as someone in the third seat... which meant there were 5 bodies in three seats, and only 4 oxygen masks overhead. Only 1 baby per set of 3 seats, and there were 18 babies to be rearranged... All was worked out, and the flight took off. All in all, the trip to the airport, the wait, and the flight seemed relatively short, even though we left the Dolton at 11am and didn't get into our room at the White Swan until 5:45pm.

We decided to eat at the Cow & Bridge Thai restaurant, which was very tasty, with Linda and Glen from Charlotte (and their son William), as well as Maggi, Caroline, Betsey, and Charles. Caroline and Jordan were not feeling so hot and a little grumpy, although once they got food they were much better. I had Pad Thai (I wasn't feeling too original), and shared an appetizer of Satay with Mom. Mom never got her green curry, but she had ordered the fruit platter for dessert and gotten that, and decided that was all she needed after all. I had mango with 2 kinds of sticky rice drizzled with coconut milk (white rice and black rice), and that, as always, was fabulous. Linda and Glen headed out first since William was fussy, then Maggi and Caroline and Betsey, and then Mom and Jordan. Caroline, Ellie, Charles, and myself were last to leave... and it turns out (which we didn't realize til Sunday morning) that we left Ellie's pink splat mat on the table. Oops!!! We hit the 7-11 to pick up some snacks and batteries for my camera, and headed back to the hotel, where Jordan and Mutti were watching all the lights and boats on and across the river.

We woke up on Sunday and went downstairs to eat at the buffet (as we did this morning too). I have to say that Mom loves the White Swan buffet, as do alot of folks, but that I am pretty disappointed in it over all and am not finding much to eat on it. This is because it is very western (even has tater tots for breakfast) and I had gotten hooked on alot of the Chinese breakfast items at the Dolton, to the point where I was eating maybe a slice of french toast at the end as the only western item. My theory is, I am in China, I can get western food when I am home, why should I eat it now? I know alot of families are sick of Chinese food by this point in the trip, but... not me. So I am really bummed about breakfast now (I would say the quality isn't even as high as the Dolton's food) but at least it's included in the hotel fees, right?

After breakfast, we went walking to Jennifer's place while Mom was at the hotel, and I fell in love with the bolts of fancy silk they have for dresses. I picked out a red silk and a brown silk with gold flowers, and got to pick the style I wanted for each out of a catalog!!! That took quite some time, and I wondered what Caroline and Jordan were doing, when all the sudden Mom walked in. Caroline had missed the little room I was in (we have to duck quite bit to get under the archways between rooms in the store), and had gone back to the hotel thinking I might have lost her and gone back. I went back with Mom as I concluded my transaction, and she and I entertained Jordan while Caroline had to go get Ellie's visa picture taken. Poor Ellie hated that and the picture was of her screaming apparently. We went to lunch at the Deli by the White Swan, and I got cheese bread, a lotus seed bun, and a red bean puff bread- all delicious! Mom had a sausage bread that she says was a fancy pig-in-a-blanket, and Caroline got barbecued pork with greens and rice. Yummy! When we got back Caroline had a message that said Ellie's picture was no good and she needed to go back that afternoon to have it retaken, so Caroline marked that down as an after-nap activity. Caroline had a 1.5 hour meeting starting at 2pm to work on papers for the U.S. side of the adoption, and that coincided well with nap time. While Mutti napped with Jordan and Ellie, I decided to walk around for a while and explored a little bit around the hotel on the greenway, as well as on the hotel grounds. The White Swan grounds are just gorgeous, with 2 pools (albeit very cold right now), one with a waterfall. It also has a beautiful view from the patio right on the river, and gorgeous plants and trees that make you feel very secluded. I also wandered inside looking at all the art, cabinetry, antiques, and carved chests (which I adore, but cost almost as much to ship as they do to buy)- all in all I walked for about an hour and twenty minutes!

After Caroline got back, she woke Ellie up (Jordan was still napping) and took her for her second attempt at a Visa picture, which luckily turned out much better (that deer-in-the-headlights look right before the crying started), and then she dropped those off with Maggie, our guide (2 pics for the visa application, and 2 for the medical exam form).

We all decided to walk some more after that and loved window shopping and looking at all the statues in the dusk. We couldn't really decide on what to eat for dinner (apathy had set in for all of us), so picked Lucy's as much because Mom and Caroline liked it as for the fact that it was right in front of us. Even though Lucy's is known for it's American style food, I was happy to find the chicken curry with Chinese eggplant which was very good. Caroline had Singapore noodles, Jordan had spaghetti, Mom had a cheeseburger, and Ellie had chicken congee. After dinner we retired to the hotel, enjoyed some apple cake from the Deli, and ended up crashing early on after a few minutes of just the big girls creating our own dialogue for one of the Chinese historical soap operas. (In which one group of warriors decided fur was a great fashion statement and that toothpaste was all the rage, another loved the red fringe lampshades, but the two groups disagreed... well, it amused us!!!!!!!)

(I'll write about today in a separate post.)