Saturday in Guangzhou

Our hotel, The Garden, is a classy business hotel. Everything is very fancy, but not always practical. I'll get some pictures of the lobby at some point, but here is the sleeping area. Notice that the beds are slightly larger than twin size and there are only 2 of them. Besides the less than ample sleeping arrrangements, we were shocked to learn there are no dressers in the room. We have clothes piled here and there.

Guess where Alice is sleeping? See the pile of bedding in the corner of the "living" area? That's her bed. We are having an air mattress delivered tomorrow for her to sleep on. DH is peeling some asian pears for our lunch and there is one happy girl sitting in the desk chair with her back to the camera. More about that later.

The view from our window. The dining area where we have breakfast is on the left side of the fish pool at the base of the waterfall.

This is where we spent over an hour this morning - the medical clinic. Most of that crowd in the background are families like ours with their newly adopted children working their way through the various stations - medical, ENT, weight/blood pressure, etc. Alice did great, but had to have 4 immunizations and a second chest x-ray. She had a TB test in Beijing just days before we arrived to get her. Apparently the test came back positive, so they did an x-ray of her lungs in Beijing which came back clear. The clinic said she had to have another x-ray. Pray that it comes back okay, or she will have to stay in China for treatment. This happened to another child and the parents had to leave him behind and then come back to get him. Not good.

On the ride back to the hotel, we asked our guide to tell Alice that she could call some of her friends in Beijing when we got back to the room. Her face lit up at the news. She made several calls and was very happy. Fortunately, it isn't very expensive so we can let her call several times while we're here in Guangzhou. We will have to invest in an international calling plan when we get home, at least for the first several months until she makes some new friends. Calling doesn't seem to make her unhappy at all. In fact, just the opposite - she seems much happier afterwards.