The White Swan

The trip to the fountain show last night turned out to be a highlight of the trip. I am sorry to have missed it, but the quiet time and a few advil did quiet my headache to a dull roar instead of the vise like pain that had gripped me in late afternoon. The fountains fascinated the boys although Devlin found them dull. But more than the fountains, there was a small amusement park. They got to ride bumper cars for the second time in a day (there were some at the zoo), Devlin did a bungy cord bounce and Liam and Mac got to push a ball around on the water (think a hamster in a clear ball running around the floor). They came home thoroughly excited.

This morning we had breakfast and packed up our things and headed for the Nanchang airport. I may never get used to the Chinese people in an airport. They push, they shove, they step in front of you. If you are on a bus and standing and they are sitting when the bus stops they will jump up and push their way out the door ahead of you. New Yorkers are the politest people on earch compared to what you see here.

Our guide met us at the airport and brought us to the White Swan. En route we were treated to a guidebook thorough history of Guanzhou and the Guandong province. It was interesting to hear, since as with Jiangxi we were focused solely on our child and did not learn anything about the area during our last trip.

For those readers unfamiliar with Chinese adoptions, most adoption trips start off in Beijing. Parents get a chance to get over their jet lag, learn some about Chinese culture by touring the famous sites and do a whole lot of shopping at the silk factory, the pearl factory, the jade factory and the cloisonne factory (I think I got them all). Afterward you travel to your child's province and the Chinese portion of the adoption is completed and your child receives her/his Chinese passport. Afterward Americans head to Guanzhou and most others head back to Beijing. Until a few years ago the American Consulate in Guanzhou was located on Shaiman Island. The White Swan Hotel is practically next door. For this reason most Americans adopting Chinese children would stay at the White Swan. An entire community popped up in the neighborhood around the consulate and hotel catering to these families - clothes, shoes, traditional Chinese items, resturants serving western food - all packed into the surrounding streets. While in Guanzhou the child's immigration to the United States is processed. This generally takes about 5 days leaving parents a lot of time to shop.

We were scheduled to tour around Shaiman island with our guide as we were arriving at the hotel earlier than the normal check in time. We chose instead to check into the hotel head down to the pool. We did our own walking tour later in the day including a stop at Starbucks. God I have been missing good coffee. The children have had a ball shopping in all the little places that specialize in marketing to the Chinese adoption community.

The children are mesmerized by The White Swan Hotel. It and the Gloria Grand may both be called 5-star, but they are not in even close to the same league. The lobby here is a wonder with a water fall and a fish pond and multiple levels for kids to explore. There are jade sculptures that put anything we saw in the jade factory in Beijing to shame. There is a cage full of birds. There are two pools here, both outdoors. One is a lap pool and is mostly quiet. When we were here adopting Devlin we went in it on our first day not realizing the other pool existed. The second pool, the garden pool, is a big, free form pool with a waterfall. It sits right along with river and is surrounded by foliage. It is very pretty and alot of fun. The Gloria was a nice hotel and we were happy there, but this really is something else.

When our roomos were ready I went up to see them. As requested they were two connecting rooms, as we have requested for most of this trip, but when I got to them they each had two single beds. I went back downstairs and asked about a king connected to two singles and were told that it did not exist. We asked about a suite and were able to upgrade for a fairly nominal fee. Booking this suite from the get go would have cost us far more than we are paying. The staff was very helpful in getting us into a room that made us happy.

Tomorrow we were supposed to visit the Chen family shrine, the Six Banyan Tree temple an the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall. The more I thought about it, this wasn't the type of day we wanted to have. I asked our guide for other options. We leave at 9:30 for a safari where we will get to see Pandas in their natural habitat. After the panda we saw yesterday it will be good to replace that image in my mind.