Welcome Guangzhou

We made it to the last city on our adoption journey (well, technically Hong Kong is the last city but since we are there less than 24 hours and just sleeping at the hotel at the airport…I’m not counting it).   Yesterday was a long day.  We left the hotel at 1PM and took an hour ride to the airport.  Alex fell asleep in the van on the way there.  This little boy will sleep anywhere.  We got to the airport at 2:30 and had a 4:30 flight.  For some reason, we had a slight layover at Xian.  So, we flew for about 45 minutes, had to get off the plane, wait 25 minutes and then get back on the plane.  The rest of the flight took about 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Alex did pretty well.  There were periods of crying…but I expected there would be.  We were worried about his ears because of his bad cold and cough…but he did great.  No problems there.  We landed at 9PM and then took an hour ride to our hotel….so it was a late night.  Alex did great…..he is just as happy as he can be as long as mommy or daddy is holding him.  Guangzhou is a welcome change from Lanzhou.  It’s warmer, cleaner, friendlier, and a lot more Amerincanized.  We have a KFC and Pizza Hut right next door to our hotel.  And our hotel is amazing.   It feels like we are staying at the Ritz compared to where we just came from.  Our room is really nice and very clean.  This morning we were actually able to put Alex on the floor in the hotel room to see how mobile he really is (in Lanzhou we just kept him on the bed as the floor in our hotel room was pretty nasty).   He can move around…but it is more of an army crawl.  He gets up on all four, but doesn’t actually move forward that way.  He pivots in all directions very quickly and can roll back and forth very easily.  We think developmentally he is about like a 6-8 month old.  Good thing he has a very active big brother at home he can quickly learn from!  

After a good night’s rest we left our hotel this morning at 8:50AM to go to Alex’s medical appointment.  The facility was strictly a place where they check out adopted children.  It was hectic and a little chaotic (which is basically ever public place in this country).  We found out he weighs 22 pounds…which is pretty good.  They checked his hearing and vision and both were great.  He wasn’t real happy when the doctor came in to check on his hypospadias.   They said everything they had reported on his medical referral was true…..so we will take care of that with his surgeries when we get back home.   We also had a doctor there check out his cold as he coughed most of the night last night.   They prescribed him an antibiotic and cough medicine…so we got the first dose in him around noon today.  We hope that helps as his cough seemed to be getting worse each day.

After his doctor appt we went to a supermarket and bought some basics to get us through the week (water, diapers, formula, etc..).  We were loading up after the supermarket and someone spotted a Papa John’s…so we asked our guide if we could eat there for lunch.   It was fantastic!  

This afternoon and tonight we have free time.  Alex is napping right now and after the nap we are going to go out exploring a little.  We weren’t really able to do that much in Lanzhou.  Partially because it was so cold there and partially because there wasn’t anything next to our hotel to do!  We are looking forward to seeing what this hotel has to offer also.   I know they have an indoor pool, so we will have to see how Alex likes that.  He absolutely hated his bath the first two times we gave him one, so this morning we tried a shower with daddy and he liked that a lot better.   We know this hotel has a revolving restaurant on the top floor that overlooks the city.  We went up there for breakfast this morning, but we were running late and didn’t get a chance to eat there and instead just grabbed something quick for the bus.  I forgot how long it takes to get ready with a baby in the morning (having to pack formula and bottles and everything).  It should be interesting when I get back home and have to pack for 2 boys!