Day 1 in Gaungzhou from Laura

Two of our travel partners had great quotes this morning

"we have died and gone to the Chinese version of the US" and the other said " we have been paroled!"

I think my quote would have been something more like a European Chinese area of the country.

It was such a late and long night last night, we left the hotel in Nanchang at 4pm and didn't get checked into the hotel here until after midnight close to 12:30 I think. but WOW!!!! The White Swan compared to where we were is like heaven on earth. The rooms are huge, clean, clean, clean, pretty, but still with an Asian/European flair. Best of all the room was sooooo cold when we came in it was like a meat locker!!! HEAVEN!! We actually had to warm the room up it really was too cold.

When we went to breakfast this morning we met up with some of the fmailies we left in Beijing, which it was nice to see them and their new children. There is one lady who adopted a little boy 18 months old who I swear is bigger than Zachary. He is sooo huge. He has a cleft pallet but is just the sweetest thing ever and has no idea of his size. He reminds me of how my nephew was but this boy is so much bigger. Another family adopted a healthy 6 year old boy who if you could see the family fits in with them perfectly and after only a week is running up to them and saying in English "mom I love you" "DAD!' It's just really amazing to be around all these families. There are other families here as well I would say 25% of the hotel guests are adopting and they are from all over the world.

There was a tragic story for one family we were with from Beijing who has now left to go home. Let's just say this that the special needs child they came to adopt had a club foot and when he went to Dr examination there were a whole host of problems and the Dr told them it wasn't fair to the American family to adopt him. It's so horrible it still makes me tear up to type it.

We walked to Zoe's Dr's examination this morning which everything was fine, she didn't enjoy it much but hey that's the breaks. She has started chatting much more to us now and says DA DA very clearly. We have counted three teeth for sure maybe more but she is a little stingy about letting us look in her mouth, and Harvey has decided not to stick his finger back in for a search a mission.

The walk around the island was beautiful and it's about 10-15 degrees cooler here than it was in Nanchang. It's got this very kind of New Orleans, old European town feel to it. Huge weeping willows and other trees, lots of gardens everywhere. I didn't take my camera but i do plan to go back out and take pictures.

This is the hotel where we will take the famous Red Couch photo, and if I have not told you about this well.... at this point you will have to just wait and see the cutest thing that will come this week.

We came back from the Dr's appointment to find a gift for Zoe in our room, it's from Mattel and The White Swan. It's a pretty blond Barbie holding a Chinese baby. How freaking cute is that? It has a letter from the hotel and Mattel. I guess they have created a special play room in the hotel for the kids to play.

Well that's a lot for one morning I will keep you posted to what happens this afternoon but at the moment things are better than they were yesterday!