Guangzhou Day 1 - (Updated Pics!)

(Allen) I'm sitting in Nana and Papa's plush hotel room at the luxurious White Swan hotel in Guangzhou. The White Swan is known as the baby hotel, as all of the agencies seem to enjoy booking their clients here. It is a 5 star hotel, and the first one I have stayed in since my brief stay in the Ritz in St. Louis (where I stayed in the same room Jay Leno did only a day before, and was in the elevator with several members of the New York Knicks -- but that's another adventure to share). We have an attendant who is literally standing next to our room door. Her job is to push the down elevator button for you and when the door opens, she says politely "this way please." When you get to another floor, there is another attended waiting for you when the elevator doors slide open. Again, she says politely "this way please," pointing us to the proper exit of the elevator. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This way please.

I awoke this morning at around 4:00am and was surprised to see Amelie still snoozing deeply. On this, of all mornings, Amelie elects to sleep the entire night. We have to wake her if we are going to be on time for the bus and the plane. As Maile wrote in the last update, I was appointed "Veronica II" for the morning. My job was to talk with the cashier and ensure that all families had properly settled their bill before departure. Thirty minutes of having housekeeping manually check each room whittled away Baba's brief breakfast window, but Maile kindly brought me some mushed up muffins. All families were on board and the bus was pulling out at exactly 6:30am -- mission accomplished.

The flight was smooth, and all of the babies did really well the entire time. We were all proud parents. Amelie continues to draw oogles from people, western and chinese alike. We sat next to a chinese lady on the plane, and another in the seat in front of us turned around to play with her. Amelie still reaches for chinese women in a social manner, as if to say "hold me." This bothers me a little, but I don't think this bothers Maile because she has so clearly bonded with us, but our guide told us that we should limit Amelie's physical interaction with chinese ("don't want her to always prefer chinese face"), and that is what we are doing. So we try and distract her and play with her. I hope it is not obvious or offending to chinese women if we redirect our daughter during their attempts to connect with her. I know they mean no harm, and we really do love the people and the culture. Sigh, Amelie is most assuredly going through a confusing time in her life, but our bond with her grows every day.

When we landed, we went directly to get Amelie's visa photo (*snap* *flash* seconds before the frightened meltdown), and then next door for her health exam. Amelie is perfectly healthy from what the doctors over here can tell. She currently weighs 16.84lbs. She is a long, thin, noodle of a girl. We had to undress Amelie for the physical, and so we thought it an excellent opportunity to change her diaper. Both Maile and I carried our individual diaper bags on the plane, and there were lots of cool things in there, such as the portable dvd player, old laundry, bibs, and our paper work. Neither one of us thought to actually store a diaper in this bag, however. Thanks to Heather from our travel group for lending us one at just the right time.

The White Swan was 10 minutes away. To continue from the first paragraph, the White Swan is situated on Shamian Island in the city of Guangzhou. Guangzhou is as western friendly as most any city in the US. We ate twice at a close by restaurant called "Lucy's" which is popular both in its western cuisine and its proximity to the hotel. It is very laid back here, and you could almost imagine yourself in a small Florida beach town. It reminds me more of Sanibel than China.

More random Amelie observations -

She can stand by herself when she forgets that she can't do it.

She has the most wonderful smile. When I see it, I can't move. How do I keep her from harm for ever and ever? I now know that being a parent is hard not just because of the late night feedings, diaper changes, meltdowns, etc. It's also hard because you love this child more than you love yourself, and that is a vulnerable feeling that doesn't go away.

Maile is going to update the blog with pictures when she can, including yesterday's entry. The *very slow* upload speed from here makes that a longer task than it should be, so we have to plan a little better for it.

(Maile) Here are some things that we, as first time parents have learned:

- Unless you want a very poopy diaper flung across the room by a squirmy baby, you must keep it out of arms reach of said baby when changing her diaper.

- How to eat with all of the food a foot away from you.

- Even if the food is a foot away from you, if it is on a placemat, it can still end up in your lap.

- When you have an active and restless child (which is an understatement in her growth report by the way), you can pretty much cancel your gym membership.

Here are the pictures:

• Pooped after her first plane ride


• Amelie's first traditional Chinese outfit


• Amelie gets a physical


• I think Nana might be smitten


• New outfit from Nana and Papa