| Today started off in a rush! The White Swan provides a nice breakfast buffet that includes everything from a big carved ham, to bacon and eggs, to congee and dim sum! You talk about covering all bases! We found out that Stephanie is a great eater. If Emily isn't careful, Stephanie will outweigh her really soon! We had our appointment with our guide today at 8:30am. We were a bit late (oops!) but it was fine. She didn't know that we already had Stephanie and thought that she was taking us to the office to get her. Imagine her surprise when she came to our hotel room and little Stephanie was crawling around on the floor. She laughed and said that our appointment would just be for paperwork now. We went to the Civil Affairs office, where the director Mrs. Yu met us again, since she has to do paperwork, too. It was nice for her to see Stephanie, all shiny and clean and happy and smiling. Stephanie and Emily were both really happy to see her again. Since we were the only family she was coming to see, she spent time with both girls playing and walking Stephanie around. We spent the afternoon walking around a major shopping district here in Guangzhou. We are finding that right around the hotel, the stores are too catered for westerners (mostly Americans) and we don't enjoy shopping here. We went to the other more local shopping area and had fun. I kept my reputation for shoe shopping, although I only ended up buying one pair for Stephanie. I bought her a couple of outfits and Emily got to buy a Barbie doll. She was really wanting to play with the Coming Home Barbie the hotel and Mattel gave us, but we don't want to let her, since it's actually Stephanie's. Mattel provides the blonde haired Barbie who is holding a Chinese baby, to all families staying here during their adoption. We didn't think we'd get one, since they're really for Americans, but they did give us one. We had planned to go out for dinner, but life intervened. Emily was tired and fell asleep on the couch, and the littlest Fung fell asleep at 6pm, too. It was, therefore, takeout for the Fung family again. The night started out so peaceful and then all hell broke loose. Emily woke up screaming with nightmares. Her screaming disturbed Stephanie, who was really angry that she was woken up. From that time on, things went downhill. We managed to calm Emily down and get her back to sleep, but Stephanie refused to go to sleep. It was midnight before she finally gave up the fight and slept. Tomorrow is a day with no obligations, just family time and maybe some more shopping. At my present rate, we'll have to buy another suitcase for the trip home. |
