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China Adoption: Days 5-7 Guangzhou
Our Holt Adoption Travel Group
Roxy 1st plane ride
Roxy was NOT a happy camper at her medical exam!
Roxy’s first light show with her first glowstick
On Shamian Island. Roxy and I are wearing handmade matching Mommy and me shirts made by my friend Rita.
Gotta buy my baby girl some cute shoes!
So on Day 5 we flew from Wuhan to Guangzhou. Our baby girl did spectacularly on her first plane ride. She enjoyed watching the takeoff and the landing and slept in between. We bid a fond farewell to our Wuhan escort Lisa and entered the metropolis that is Guangzhou. Now Guangzhou has a special meaning for me and Kenny. We are both 100% Cantonese Chinese. Although our parents were born in Hong Kong, all of our ancestors before our parents were from the Guangzhou area. We can even name our ancestral villages (Zhong San, Poon Yue, and Nam Hoi). I speak Cantonese fluently, Kenny doesn’t. But we both like the idea of venturing through the part of China where our ancestors actually were from.
Everyone in the adoption community usually stays at the White Swan Hotel. But this time around White Swan is being renovated. Holt decided we’d be staying at another hotel that is in the hub of Guangzhou. We checked into the China Hotel Marriott and man, the hotel is so much nicer than the place we stayed at in Wuhan. The rooms are bigger and nicer, the customer service is spot on, and the amenities are countless. We loved the free breakfast buffet. They even have a play area for kids on the 4th floor.
On Day 6, we had a scrumptious breakfast at our hotel (did I already mention China Holt Marriott is AWESOME?!) and went to the Guangdong International Travel Healthcare Center. The place was bedlam. This is the place where all the adoption families for the required exit medical examination. I will say I’m sure these people working there are really good at their jobs. But since they have so many people coming through they are trying to be as expeditious as possible and don’t really have a great bedside manner. So when the doctors and nurses tried to grab Roxy quickly and stick things in her, poked and prodded her, she did NOT take it well. It was painful for me to watch her scream. I can’t really blame her. She’s too young to really know what is going on and in her defense, if someone grabbed me like that I’d be pretty ticked off. I’m checking out the pictures of right after the exam and it shows one upset baby girl. The fact that there were 3 different “stations” that Roxy had to go through made it worse. Thank God that Roxy was too young to do the TB test and didn’t have to receive any shots. We received her immunization record and she is actually up to date on her shots. Later that day Kenny and I received a pleasant surprise when we were upgraded for free to a suite in our hotel. Kenny had talked to someone in management because the wifi signal in our room was just terrible. They moved us to a suite with a strong wifi signal and sent us a cute fruit basket as a way to rectify the situation. (We hadn’t asked to change rooms, actually we were just expecting them to switch out a router.) Roxy was a very upset little girl from all that she had been through that day and was a bit sleep deprived since she refused to take a nap. We handled her multiple screaming fits that night. She wet her diaper a few times although she is potty trained. Kenny and I decided that our little girl has had quite enough to handle lately and if she refuses to go sit on the toilet, then we can keep her in pull ups and work on potty training after we get home and settle in.
Day 7 was a much better day. I was able to rent a stroller from our hotel for the cheap price of $20 renbinmi, which basically works out to a few dollars a day. This stroller turned out to be very valuable because we weren’t tired from carrying her (my poor husband has greater physical strength of course so he always winds up carrying her for long periods of time.) We took a leisurely time at breakfast without rushing through and took a taxi to Shamian Island. Please see the family picture we took with Roxy and I wearing matching handmade Mommy and me shirts. Shamian Island is this part of Guangzhou that is well known to be a shoppers paradise. They have tons of children’s clothing, plenty of Chinese clothing that can be tailor made, and even live music and a nice park. Kenny and I winded up buying 6 pairs of shoes for Roxy. I couldn’t help myself. They were so cheap, at about 10 dollars or less a pair that it was a no brainer. Roxy came with one pair of red boots that Kenny and I don’t like because they are hard to get on and off. So we were determined to find our little girl some cool shoes. She already has a fabulous wardrobe waiting for her back home. We ate at Lucy’s which is located next to the park. They have a good mix of American food and food from other cultures. The food was reasonable, not bad. We were pretty pooped out from shopping and walking around and just decided to buy back dinner and eat in our suite.
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