Monday, August 22 at 9:15 pm Guangzhou time

We're now in Guangzhou at the White Swan Hotel. The White Swan Hotel is well known to those in the U.S. that have adopted Chinese babies - I suspect about 95% of them have stayed here. The reason is that it is close to the US Consulate, although the Consulate moved to a different location just last month.

I don't think that will affect White Swan's business, though. It is a beautiful 5 star hotel on the Shanmian Island in Guongzhou. Guongzhou itself is a large city (10 million or so) and Shanmian Island was set up with a European influence. These days, however, it is very Americanized - I assume in large part due to the number of Americans staying at the White Swan. There are tons and tons of stores here catering to the US visitor - many of the mom and pop store owners speak English and they know their customer. This is once again one of the situations where you bargain with the vendors to get the best price (even though quite frankly the original price is oftentimes cheap). Sue and the girls already picked up some stuff here. Stephanie picked up a traditional Chinese dress that is very nice for $5, they bought some bracelets, etc. I'm sure they're not nearly done yet, but I think that whatever they buy will be a good reminder of China for them. Sue's also picking up stuff for Stacie as she grows older.

Aside from the shopping in Guangzhou, the only other significant thing that we did today was have a physical exam performed on Stacie at the health clinic. This is something that apparently all adopted babies have to go through, although in this case it was helpful because we were wondering whether Stacie had an ear infection or perhaps sinus infection due to her coughing at night. One of the doctors examining her said everything was okay. I presume that's correct, but everything was done so fast it's hard to say whether they paid all that much attention.

On that same subject, there were two couples that had to bring their babies into the hospital in Changsha. Although one of them was told by a Chinese person that this is the second best hospital in Changsha, they said the conditions were terrible - if you weren't sick when you went in you were sure to be sick when you left. Aside from the lack of air conditioning and the flies that were in there, they said it was filthy, including blood in various places where it shouldn't be. One of them said that the hotel was 10 times cleaner than the hospital (admittedly, the hotel was very clean, but still . . .).

By the way, our flight from Changsha to Guangzhou was (fortunately) uneventful. It was Stacie's first airplane flight, however, and she did well.

Attached is a picture of Ryan and Stacie in our room at the White Swan.

I should have more updates tomorrow. We're in the home stretch now . . . .

Gord