Saturday in Guangzhou... from Kate

Today was another fun day. Doug spent his last few hours on mainland China taking in the sights of the island, well as much as he could in-between rain showers. He is now in Hong Kong. Here he is enjoying an icy beverage...

And here we are posing at the White Swan, a local hotel well known to the adoption community and where I stayed last time. The lobby and pool are beautiful but I will say the rooms we are in are bigger and nicer. For those of you coming soon and want to save money, we are in the Annex building of the Victory, in a business suite, with a king size bed (and it is soft!!), free internet (and computer to use) in room!

Here is our "Red Couch" photo (a Chinese adoption tradition)... we wanted to get one before Doug leaves. Tomorrow our group will get one as well - but I know that Nyah will be crying in the one that is just all kids so I wanted to get a decent one today.

While Nyah slept today the boys went to the local park so Caleb could try his feet at hackey-sack. I don't know exactly how the encounter with the school children started or what happened (maybe Caleb will write about it on his blog tomorrow), but their adventure made for some cute pictures.

Nyah now has 3 pairs of shoes. They are the kind that squeak when you walk and while Brynn refused to walk in them until I took the squeaky out, Nyah doesn't seem to notice. She had her first really good nap today and when she woke up... watch out!

She was full of herself in the room tonight. Our guide, XiXi (pronounced See See) came to our room (and presented Nyah with a chop she made herself!) to let me do tomorrow's paperwork without the entire group since Nyah will not stay with anyone else without crying hysterically. Well Nyah was chatting (it is not Chinese our guide says, just babble), laughing, playing with Grandpa, and was just being hysterically funny. Later she was extremely cranky when I changed her diaper, put her in her pj's, and made her bottle, so I guess she just likes extremes. She continues to be very wary of new things. I tried to put her on a small slide, still holding her, today and she had a fit. But she is enjoying walking more and more holding my hand when we are outside, though if we come across a large group of people she stops in her tracks and refuses to move. She also found herself in the mirror today and that was too funny. Today I finally got her to come to me when we are in the room when she wants me instead of crying; tomorrow I am going to work on her showing me she wants "up" rather than just standing there like a statue.

One of the places we went shopping today was a store called Jenny's. Our guide says most of the adoptive families were coming in today so there were very few actually shopping today so the shops were not crowded. Jenny was very nice and asked me to help her understand English. She had highlighted words in an email and asked me what they mean... "drop it" as in "drop the subject" was one. She also asked me the difference between "pleasure" and "pressure" because she pronounces them the same way. Nyah cut our English lesson short but it was fun to try to come up with ways to explain the words.

Okay, the funniest part of the day... I had the opening of the para-Olympics on and there was music. Nyah walked very fast across the room to get her "free gift with purchase" rattle and then proceeded to move inches from the TV and dance. Caleb and I were laughing so hard. I think I finally have a video clip short enough to upload (no video editing software here) where I caught some if it... hope it works. And please, the sound does not work on the computer, so if I am saying anything embarrassing, let me know!!

I would be typing all night if I described today's strolls through the parks. Dancing, Kung Fu, Chinese children playing everywhere, adults of all ages hackey-sacking, etc. There were also many couples having their wedding photos taken.

It was all truly amazing!

Until tomorrow, when I get to meet the other 4 families we will be sharing the next few days with,

Kate