Guangzhou Day 5

Today we met the rest of the travel group. I felt so bad for them. They got on a plane at 11:50pm Sunday night in California and arrived in China 6:30am Tuesday morning. That's China time. They lost 12 hours coming over. No one had time to rest before having to meet in the lobby of the hotel at 10:30am. To say they were all a little fried was an understatement. This is my facilitator, Norman, giving us info on the tour bus.

We went to the Sky One Restaurant for brunch. It was an amazingly beautiful place. We had a private room all to ourselves and ate with the owner of the restaurant.

This was our view from the 29th floor.

Some of the food was...uh, interesting. Some was really good.

And some was looking at us.

This light fixture was absolutely breathtaking. My mom would've loved it. The glass balls on the ends were purple.

After we ate, the owner took us up to the top floor and showed off his retractable roof. It was pretty impressive.

A dinner reservation at this table is over $15,000USD ...and there's a very long waiting list. I can't even imagine.

The view from the top. Guangzhou is a beautiful city. Not like anything I've ever seen before. So modern.

The architecture is stunning. This is the building the restaurant was in.

This is the view looking through that hole from above it.

Three of my travel mates have daughters adopted from China. They're 6, 7 and 8 yrs old and became instant BFF's. They're adorable. 

After brunch, getting a run down of what to expect over the next week and exchanging our money, we drove around on a city tour for a bit. Like I said.... Guangzhou is gorgeous and unlike anything else.

We had to have our bags outside the room by 6pm. We also were given the option of leaving some things here at the Marriott China Hotel since we'll be returning on the 31st. Carla was determined she could get all of our essentials into only one checked bag. Since it couldn't be more than 44 lbs I thought she was crazy and just knew there was no way she could do it. She accepted the challenge and went to work. 

While I relaxed with a vanilla Coke and lemon tea flavored chips. They were actually pretty good.

Turns out... I was wrong. Now that we've been in China for almost a week we had a better idea of what we need and don't need. So she cut it down to the bare minimum and got it all in one checked bag plus our rolling carry on, backpack and messenger bag. I didn't think she could get it under 44 lbs but she did it! 

We have to be in the lobby at 5:45am to catch our flight to Nanchang. Yikes! Like tomorrow won't be hard enough. Now we'll apparently be running on little sleep. Not like I really thought I'd be sleeping anyway though, right? We're supposed to be getting the babies at our hotel sometime after lunch. Norman said possibly 2pm-ish. They're traveling by bus 4 hours from the orphanage. So it depends on how their travel goes as to what time they get there. 

The butterflies have kicked in. I'm feeling ...well, a lot of different things. Nervous, excited, happy, scared, anxious. It's almost 8pm here. I can't believe in only 12 hours I'll be on a plane to meet my daughter. I can't wait to see her, to meet her, to hold her. I want to know how big she really is. Is she a chunky monkey like her pictures appear? Or are those shots deceiving and she's really a tiny little thing? Has she changed since the last update 6 weeks ago? Is her hair longer? I just want her. I'm so ready for that part. 

If you're the praying type, I wouldn't mind some sent our way. Pray my sister and I stay healthy. Pray Mia does, too. Pray that she transitions as well as possible and that I can comfort her as she's grieving the loss of her old life. 

I can't believe it's here. I'm in China .... and tomorrow after over 5 years of waiting for this day...finally Mia.