Arrival in Guangzhou

The weather man lied!!!! When we arrived at The White Swan in Guangzhou it was cloudy and about 50 degrees. But, I think we were too excited to care. We checked in and received our room keys. We walked in the room and the first thing we saw was the 'crib'. Andrea immediately began snapping pictures before we 'moved in'.

The hotel room is a little smaller than the one in Beijing but it is very clean and much brighter. It's the first hotel I've stayed in with 'Floor Attendants'. Just off the elevator there is a small desk with an Attendant that is there to answer any questions or to simply greet you. There is an additional attendant that pushes the elevator door for you. One of the other couples said there were 4 attendants on their floor.

After staring at the crib for about an hour, we met the rest of the group and Catherine for a quick tour of the area. We are staying in an area called Shamian Island. Catherine walked a couple of blocks with us pointing out directions to various shops, restaurants, and grocery stores. We passed one restaurant that had tanks with live fish, lobsters, snakes, eels, & pigeons (???) that you would select for them to prepare for your dinner. Andrea felt bad for a really cute black snake, so she bought it to bring home with us (ha, ha). Anyway, we didn't feel too adventurous for dinner, so we decided to eat at one of the few restaurants that served Western food. (Then proceeded to order Asian fried noodles w/ chicken (Andrea) and Chicken Quesadillas (Don) - go figure!).

Monday - - Feb. 18, 2008 (9:50 a.m.)

After a pretty much sleepless night, we went downstairs for the breakfast buffet. The buffet was even better than Beijing. Now we have to figure out how we're going to spend our last 6 hours as a family of 2. We're going to go out and shop for a little while and become more familiar w/ Shamian Island. We will then meet up with the rest of the group at 3pm for the bus ride over to the U.S. Consulate where we will receive our daughters!