Day 8: Hello Guangzhou

Today was our first full day in Guangzhou.  Olivia was excited to be back in her province because this time she will remember it when we leave.  After breakfast this mronign Brian took Heidi to her medical exam where she had some blood drawn, was tested for TB and had a general phsyical exam to be sure she is ok to leave the country.  Brian said she only cired for a couple minutes when they took some blood, but other than that she did great!

While Brian was with Heidi at her medical exam, I spent the morning with Olivia exploring the hotel and the area surrounding our hotel. We found a Subway, McDonald's, KFC, a Mexican restaurant,  Pizza Hut and an Italian restaurant.  There are also a ton of noodle houses around here but I was beyond excited to find many "western" style restaurants so close for a change.

We all met back up in the hotel room around lunch time and decided to go to McDonald's.  Back at home, Olivia requests McDonald's on a regular basis and we normally turn her down and suggest other options, but I was all for it today. :)  The McDonald's here has a few touchscreen kiosk type areas close to the registers where you can place your order and pay, then just wait on your order to be ready avoiding the line altogether.  They also had an actual "McCafe" area set up like a samll Starbucks in a Target where they sold their coffee drinks and pastries.

After lunch, we came back to the hotel and went swimming at the outdoor pool.  The water was FREEZING even though it was a pretty warm day out.  Olivia insisted on swimming for a while though, but she was the only one to actually fully immerse herself in the water.  Heidi wasn't scared of the water at all and enjoyed playing in it even as she shivered. 

I took both girls to the hotel's playroom area this afternoon and we met a couple other adoptive families there.  The playroom is more like a play suite with a library in one room--it had paperback books for adults, National Geographics and children's books.  Some books were in English while others were in Chinese.  Olivia picked out a Junie B. Jones book and brought it back to our room to read tonight.  Another room in the playroom area was a lounge type area for the parents with a mini fridge stocked with bottled waters, a couple of sofas, and an assortment of teas to try out.  Finally the playroom had a small plastic castle with a slide, balls, legos and a few riding toys.  I am sure we will make a trip to the playroom area everyday!

For dinner tonight we tried out the Mexian restaurant near our hotel.  We ordered some nachos for an appetizer, chicken nuggests for Olivia per her request, chicken quesadilla for Heidi, hard shell chicken tacos for me and enchiladas for Brian.  Everything was really pretty good, but they do not serve chips and salsa like they do back home.  Because we chose a more "western" style restaurant we spent about $50 on our meal again.  If we stick to the local Chinese noodle houses we can get by on about $20 or les for everyone.

Tomorrow morning we meet up with our guide and a couple other families to do some local touring and then visit the pearl and jade markets.  When we were here in Guangzhou the last time around with Olivia we purchased a pearl necklace and earrings as well as a jade neckace too.  We are saving the jade necklace for her high schol graduation gift and the pearls will be for her wedding.  Last time around they let us hand pick the pearls and they strung each necklace and made the earrings for us right there.  We are hoping to do the same for Heidi tomorrow. We