Travel Journal

(A little blurry because we like to shake our head and say, "YEAH!" when we sport our shades!)

We arrived at our hotel at almost 3:00 AM this morning. We were scheduled for an arrival of 10:15. What caused the flight delay? We still don't know because once again that part of the announcements was not translated. We sat in the hot airport for an hour and a half where poor Kaylee had to be changed on a disposable changing pad on the waiting area chairs because there were no changing tables in the bathrooms. Big thanks to the "been there, done that" China adoptive parent who gave the heads up to bring those disposable changing pads along. We put up a barricade made of our carry on baggage to shield her from onlookers because it seems like everyone stares anyway at the Americans with the "very beautiful baby" going to U.S.. We've gotten that comment a lot. Of course I beam!

Then we sat in a plane on the Tarmac with no AC for another 1.5 hours. When we finally did land, we were last off because of the baby and needing to gather things. We walked to the glass doors that led into the airport and they had been LOCKED!!! Fortunately the pilot hadn't de-boarded and saw us. By that time we were panicked and afraid our guide and driver would think we'd missed the flight and leave us! The pilot and head flight attendant sounded quite irritated at the person who had locked the door on us when they called for help! Oh, and did I mention I REALLY needed to go to the bathroom when we BOARDED the plane?! But I didn't want to wake the sleeping sweet Mei Mei so I waited thinking I'd go as soon as we landed...which turned out to be 5 hours later! So, back to our saga...by the time the door finally opened, we had to rush to baggage and pray our guide was there...which she was...and kindly led us to the bathroom!




The great part about this very tiring and frustrating night however, was that little miss Mei Mei never cried! She was an angel and played contentedly with the instruction placard in the seatback pocket for about an hour before falling asleep again. I can't say the same for the adults in our Mitchell crew who were tired, cranky, and whining loudly about our ordeal! So yes, Kaylee was the mature one...just sayin'!

Guangzhou is very pretty and I'm happy to report we had KFC for lunch and Papa Johns pizza for dinner! Yeah! tomorrow we see the museum. We'll be taking advantage of the rumored inexpensive squeaky shoes deals tomorrow too since only 1 pair of Kaylee's shoes are even close to small enough. Her tiny feet are more like an 18 month old...max. Maybe younger.

I'm still trying to get videos to attach here, but to no avail so far. Using Blogpress app on the iPad if anyone has any tips? We have some darling ones and we do have Wifi in the rooms here!

Today Kaylee had her medical exam. It was horrifying for her. Hence, it was for me too. From the very beginning when they took her picture, all the way through each exam room, ending with the TB stick test, she wailed. I mean screamed bloody murder. She was terrified and clung to me for dear life. She's been through SO much this week. It absolutely killed me. I wanted to grab her and run with her as far away from that place as I could. 10 minutes later we had her giggling. It took me a little linger. I tear up even now just thinking about it. Please pray the TB test comes back clean so we don't have to revisit for a chest X-ray.

We had a similar reaction when she had to have her passport photo last week. :(.




Here are a few new pics!


(waking up after nap following terrifying medical exam)


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Location:Made it to Guangzhou!