Sunday-Mother's Day!

We spent Mother's Day sightseeing. Alexis Qi gave me a flower! When we visited the Bao'an SWI, her teacher gave it to her and told her to give it to me on Mother's Day. She remembered!

We went to the Pearl Market. I bought a jade bracelet and pearl earrings to save for Alexis Qi. We also visited the Chen home/museum.

We went to the play room at the Victory to burn off her extra energy. She has lots of it! My girl is in the stage where she is testing me. She is happy, but very spirited! She gets restless when we go sightseeing.

Overall, we had a good day. We ate at the local Cantonese place for lunch. One of the dishes came out with shrimp heads. I am sticking to noodles, rice, and vegetables. We went back to the Italian place for dinner.

Today, we head back to the medical place to get her TB test read. We are also going to have her ear checked since she has an ear ache.

Saturday- Medical exam

Alexis Qi had her medical exam on Saturday. She may need glasses. She had some trouble seeing far. Everything else is good.

She had her first Italian meal, pizza and spaghetti. She loved it! She had sauce all over her face. She will fit in fine with our big Italian family. The waiter was in love with her. She is 5 years old, but all of the Chinese people keep calling her 'the baby.' She does look like a toddler to me since she is about 37 inches tall.

We did some shopping and visited the local park. It is so hot and humid. The heat made her very tired. This is a good this since she has so much energy! I bought her some squeeker shoes. She loves wearing them, everyone knows when she is around. The park was very busy. We keep seeing lots of brides and models getting there pictures taken. There was some type of event today with Chinese women wearing period clothing from the 14th century (?).

We will do more sightseeing and visit the Pearl Market on Sunday, my first Mother's Day.

Sightseeing around Guangzhou

Yesterday, we went sightseeing. We visited a temple, walked through Chinese neighborhoods, visited a Chinese pharmacy, the herbal market, a food market. The markets were interesting. We wouldn't see snakes, scorpions, centipedes, turtles, eels, etc for sale at home. I witnessed a snake beginning gutted. Yuck! The temple was very interesting. You have to watch out for the fake monks begging in front; monks with cars and cell phones. :)

It is very humid here so we were wiped out. We headed to the hotel play room for the kids to burn off their excess energy.

We ate at a traditional Cantonese restaurant for dinner. The menu showed many of the creatures that we saw in the market so we went with vegetables rice noodles and pork fried rice!

We are heading for the medical exam today.

Visit to Bao'an and Longgang SWI's!

We visited the Bao'an and Longgang SWI's. Alexis Qi did very well. She was happy to see her friends, teachers, and the staff. She was very loved at Bao'an. She wanted to show me her bed and closet. She was happy to leave with me!

The other family traveling with us toured her SWI with us and we toured Longgang with them. We also visited the finding spots of both kids. They were found inside the emergency room of hospitals. Alexis was found on a bench with some clothes, a bottle, and formula. The SWI didn't keep the items. :(

I was allowed to take pictures of other kids for those waiting.

Mia, "Ian" was too cute! He sat right down on my lap so I was able to give him that hug from you. I am sure that he will do very well in your family.

All of the kids in the class seem very lovable! They pulled their little chairs into the hall to watch us after we left their classroom.

Susan, Our guide told "Harley" that his mama and baba wanted pictures of him so he posed for us.

We are going sightseeing tomorrow.

Update!

Everything has gone well...after Gotcha day of course. Alexis Qi was very happy and all smiles when I first met her, then she started to cry and tried to get away. She has been very happy since, but has got given me time to divert my attention from her! She also has a cold and a cough. Here are some pictures to show you. She loves my iPad. She likes to look at my pictures, videos, and writing Chinese characters on one of my apps. She likes the movies that I loaded for her, too.

My Facebook account is locked out until I get on my laptop at home.

We are heading to her orphanage tomorrow morning. I will try to get some pictures for those with kids in Baoan. My guide said I will need to ask permission to take the photos.

Shaiman Island, Guangzhou

We left JFK on Friday around 3:00pm. We flew Cathay Pacific, JFK to Hong Kong to GZ. Our guide, Richard, met us at the gate. He asked me if I was Asian. That was the first time someone thought that I might be Asian (that I know of, anyway).

We hit a wall of heat outside of the airport at 10:00pm. We took an air conditioned bus to the Victory Hotel. We finally got into our room around 11:30pm.

The room in the Victory West is nice, but we are waiting to be switched to a deluxe room with a sofa on Thursday. The breakfast buffet is quite extensive. It even had crispy bacon. I already blew a fuse in the room with my converter and surge protecter so the maintenance team already knows us. :)

Today (Sunday), we met with our Guide, Alexa, and toured the island. She pointed out all of the 'safe' places to eat, location of the 7-11s, parks, and stopped at Jennifer's to find out about laundry services for later in the week. We then walked around ourselves and stopped at Starbucks. We ate Thai for dinner at Cow and Bridge. It was an interesting experience trying to order with the language barrier. It is hard to know the protocol when ordering and paying. We learned it is okay to call over the waitress by waving furiously at them from the other customers. There were some interesting items on the menu like intestines, pigeon, and ostrich. I went safe and ordered pork fried rice. We are just resting this evening to get over our jet lag since we didn't get much sleep on the plane.

We meet at 2:00 pm tomorrow to get Alexis Qi at the civil affairs office!! Can't believe it!!!

Leaving for China on Friday!!

It is finally here. I am traveling to China on Friday. We will arrive in Guangzhou late Saturday night.

Our Gotcha day is Monday, May 7th. Our consulate appointment is on the 17th!! Yeah!!