Arrived in Guangzhou

Hi, Everyone,
We arrived in Guangzhou last night. The flight was a little delayed, but not too bad. Kira always seems to do well on airplanes and Max did fine on his first flight. We had food, so the minimum requirements were met for him. Plus, there were several pretty, girls for him to flirt with, which is a big bonus. Molly, our rep here, met us at the airport. She was also our rep when we got Kira a few years ago. We had a lot of catching-up to do.
It felt good to get here and back to the White Swan. The hotel is on Shamian Island, a small area of town that was reclaimed from the river during the Qing dynasty. There are many old, grand buildings from China’s republic period, from the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s. The buildings were built for international banks, consulates, international companies and the like. Each of them is unique and interesting. Today, most have other uses, but the buildings are still impressive. Together with the narrow, tree-lined streets, they give the small island a stately feel with a more relaxed pace, relative to the large city as far as the eye can see around it. It all feels familiar, now, and like home in a way.
The hotel had some baby cribs available, so we took one. Kira opened it and Max couldn’t wait to crawl in. We thought “Sweet Lord in heaven, this is great!” It was, pretty-much. The joy was tempered, though, as both kids had troubles during the night – one in particular requiring extensive cleanup, so sleep wasn’t terribly abundant.
On our previous visit, there were dozens of adopting families and the breakfast buffet at the hotel was full and noisy. It wasn’t that way at all this morning. There were people coming through, but only a handful of adopting families. We tended to be seated in the same general section. Much of the rest of the hotel has remained the same, as has the surrounding community with some notable exceptions. Several of the shops we frequented in the old buildings are now closed and empty. Seeing the changes made us a little sad because these changes meant that the conditions that were part of our very good experience the first time might soon not exist anymore. Of course, a major part of our first experience was the friends in our travel group and we miss them this time. We have encountered a handful of other families, but since we’re all special-needs adoptions, everyone is on their own schedule, so the associations are fleeting.
We started with business right after breakfast. We had to get Max’s VISA picture taken and medical check done. Max is generally good-natured, but unfortunately, none of that came with us to the photographer. He had several fits, almost indistinguishable from each other – inconsolable, enraged, screaming, sweaty fits – a sort of megafit. He was even beyond the reach of food. Our secret weapon, fruit chews, had absolutely no effect. He really hated something about the photographer or something else hit him wrong. We removed him from the building 3 times before giving up and going to the medical check.
I’m not sure why we thought the medical check would go any better. There was no obvious reason for him to hate photographers, but since he’s had major surgery, there is probably an understandable reason from him to be uncomfortable with doctors – or at least adults in white lab coats, which were visible from the point we entered the clinic. Max was furious and let everyone know. There was a sign “Please Keep Quiet” at the front desk, which might have helped, but since our kid can’t read, yet, he screamed all the way to the back and through the first two checks. He was so mad, he filled his pants as one of the physicians was checking his lower abdomen. This doctor was growing impatient with the wailing and was becoming terse with us, but we thought, “You’re a male and he’s not even crying in English, what do you expect us to do?” It got better when a more senior female doctor came in to listen to his heart. He calmed down for her so she could listen between the sobs. Then, when the pretty ENT doc brought her little electronic piano to check his hearing, he was willing to put up with most anything. He also didn’t make a sound when the two young nurses had to give him a shot for the TB test. Yes, we see the pattern, too.
After that, Molly took us with another family to tour a Buddhist temple. It was the same temple we toured with Kira 3 years earlier. One of the monks did a blessing for us. We’re not Buddhist, but it seemed silly to turn down a perfectly good blessing. Kira enjoyed seeing where, when she was a baby, she had a tug-of-war with one of the monks over his prayer beads. A few of the workers there were commenting on Max’s “Buddha ears” and “Buddha belly”. It’s supposedly a sign of good luck – or it’s one of those things one thinks of to say to people who are struggling and there’s not much other positive input to share. We eventually made it back to the hotel and the kids had a good nap.
During nap time, I took a load of laundry to one of the shops and walked around a few blocks. There was a group of elementary students that stalked me for awhile until their teacher could catch-up. She explained that the kids wanted to practice their English. It was fun. We shared a few phrases and they went off to stalk another foreigner. I continued my walk past the Polish consulate – the last consulate left on Shamian. (There used to be many located here, including the US consulate.) There were two Chinese guards outside. We exchanged hello’s and they seemed vigilant, but not terribly uptight. It wasn’t exactly a hotbed of actvitity. The biggest news from the walk – I scored some xtra-large diapers for Max. Bonus!
We ended the night after going out to an Italian place for supper. It was just OK, but Max seemed to think that an Italian restaurant in China was a good place to say his first distinguishable English word – Hello. It must have been a southern Italian restaurant because it was very hot inside. Once back and ready for bed, we got our nighttime tantrum out of the way and everyone has faded out.
We’ll take another shot tomorrow.

Kim, Michelle, Kira (no longer in timeout) and Max