Getting the Lay of the Land

We're in the middle of day 4 here in Guangzhou- sorry it's been a few days since my last post...

Zach continues to warm up to all of us and everyday, more and more of his personality comes out.  He is such a happy and active little guy- for a little man- he has a HUGE personality!

He loves to strut around with his back pack on his back- it's as if he is saying, "Come on y'all- try to keep up with me!"

He enjoys playing hide and seek in the closet in our room- closing the closet door and a few seconds later- popping out to "surprise" us!

The hotel where we are staying, The White Swan, is a world class hotel.  It is located next to where the U.S. Consulate used to process adoptions, so over the years, a lot of American families have stayed here while in Guangzhou.  The White Swan has become synomonous with Americans adopting Chinese kids.  Matel built a special playroom in the hotel for kids to play in and gives every U.S family a "Coming Home" Barbie- a totally jazzed up fashionable Barbie holding her newly adopted Chinese baby (and now that you asked- why yes, I have looked totally jazzed up and fashionable every day I've had Zach!).  All around the hotel you will see American families with their Chinese kids along walking around next to world class executives in 3-piece suits!  And the pool here is amazing- complete with a waterfall!

On sunday nite, we went to dinner with some other families in our travel group to an Italian place- the chef is from Italy- the food was amazing!  The kids kept us entertained with their cuteness- Zach had his fork full of noodles held above his head lowering the noodles down into his mouth and laughing the entire time.

Yesterday we toured two different sites- a buddhist temple and the Chen Family Temple.  The Chen family temple was amazing- the detail of the wood carvings and paintings on the buildings were unbelievable!  During the tour, Zach got bored and got his plane out of his backpack and began playing with it- he and xixi also chased each other around as well.  Pretty cute.

There is a great playground area about 2 blocks from our hotel...a lot of the local people go there with their children and you also see older people there doing Tai Chi and other exercises.  It has both aplayground and exercise equipment and a little track surrounding it.  XiXi has become a pro at the running-in-place exerciser and Zach totally loves going down the big slide!

I've also been doing a LOT of shopping.  There are a lot of shops here on the island that are geared to adoptive families that all sell pretty much the same thing.  They stand out on the street and when they see an american with a Chinese child, they come up and hand you a flyer and tell you all about their store.  Some of them are a bit more pushy than others.  Our guide, Kelly, gave us the lowdown on which shops had the best respective items (chops, clothes, art, etc.)!

Last nite our guide took all of the families to a local Cantonese restaurant- it was amazing!

Today, Zach had his TB test read- it was negative- not even a little bump!  PHEW!  All of the kids in our group were ok!   Stay tuned for a picture post coming up next!