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In the Lobby of the Beautiful White Swan Hotel

Once a family completes the adoption formalities in their child's home province, they travel to Guangzhou to submit the application for a visa to the U.S. Consulate.  This allows the family to bring their new daughter or son back to America.

Since the U.S. Consulate building is located next door to the White Swan, most adopting families have stayed at the hotel during their time in Guangzhou.  Even though the Consulate's Orphan's Unit and Visa Section moved to new offices in the Tenghe District last year, the medical clinic remains on Shamian Island and most families stay at the White Swan.

The time spent with each child at the White Swan is truly precious.  By the time families arrive at the White Swan they have spent about a week with their new baby and the bonding relationship has begun to blossom.  This was certainly true for our family.

We wanted to return to Guangzhou during this trip because it is the one place in China where our daughters, coming from two different provinces, share a common heritage.  For years, they have seen our photos and videos from each of their adoption trips.  We wanted them to see the actual locations from the photos.

At the White Swan's breakfast buffet on Saturday morning, we met quite a few adoptive families that we had helped either during their paperchase or with their visas.  It was great to meet so many friends and see their beautiful new daughters and sons!

Hannah Loved Shopping at     Jennifer's Place

Today a variety of shops occupy space in the former diplomatic buildings.  Jennifer's place (left) and Sherry's place both have a good reputation for hospitality towards adoptive families. 

Since our last visit in 2002, quite a few new shops have opened all around the island.  Some of new stores now employ barkers on the street to entice you in.  The staff at many of these newer stores were aggressive to the point of being rude.

Guangzhou weather in July is hot and steamy - kind of like New Orleans in August!  This year was no exception and we found ourselves wilting after walking around for only 30 minutes or so.  We were thankful that our adoption trip visits to Guangzhou were in the fall and early spring, when the weather is much more agreeable.

Still, as we walked around the island it was great to see the girls recognize different locations from their adoption trip photos.  "Mommy, is that the place where your pushed me in my stroller or is this where Daddy took my photo with the flowers?" were typical questions.

After lunch at Lucy's, we enjoyed shopping in one of Guangzhou's many pearl shops.  We had a good recommendation on this particular shop from another adoptive family and we were very pleased with their selection and service.

For dinner, we ate at the Cow & Bridge Thai restaurant near the Beatrice food store on Shamian Island.  We were all pretty tired and returned to our room at the White Swan for some sleep.

Making a New Friend at the Pearl Shop

Chen Family Temple

Our interest on this morning was Chinese paintings.  A shop inside the temple sells high-quality paintings and we wanted to add a few to our collection. We took a quick tour of the temple and then found three very nice paintings to take home.

Back at the White Swan we had time for a quick lunch and then had to leave for Guangzhou's new Baiyuan airport and our flight to Beijing.  The new airport is welcome replacement for the former, very old and cramped facility.  The new Baiyuan is shaped like a huge, elliptical horseshoe and is quite attractive both inside and out.  It is, however, a much longer ride (about 50 minutes) from the center of Guangzhou.

With all the additional space at the new airport, we were hoping to avoid a bus gate.  A bus gate is where the airline combines what would otherwise be about eight jetway gates into one.  Naturally, this makes for a pretty crowded waiting room.  After presenting your ticket, you then walk out onto the tarmac and cram onto a large bus with about 150 other people plus everyone's carry-on luggage.  To make it even more fun, the buses rarely have seats, so everyone has to hold onto poles or straps to keep from falling over as the vehicle careens down the airport taxiways. 

This time, the good folks at China Southern Airways decided to have the bus take us on an extended tour of the entire airport area.  We kept passing aircraft after aircraft thinking that surely, this must be the one for our flight.  Finally the bus stopped, the doors opened, and we all filed out.  It was only then that we discovered that we now had to climb two flights up an external set of stairs to enter a jetway before finally boarding the aircraft. 

We just marvel at the bureaucratic mindset that comes up with this kind of plan.  It has to be someone who really enjoys making passengers miserable!  All of that schlepping around just to have to climb up and board on a real jetway.  Why not just post the real gate and let everyone walk there through the terminal?  Oh well,  we must not be qualified to work for the airlines. <g>

Once we boarded, the flight into Beijing was pretty smooth.  Seating in China Southern's coach class was tight but comparable to any U.S. airline.

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