Medical Exam

This morning started off with a trip to do the medical exam for Meigan. It was really quite funny actually. The had a keyboard that they made some noise to the left of her and when she looked over there, they said her hearing was good. She made an attempt to look in her mouth with a tongue depressor but Meigan didn't comply at all, Brian finally held her head still and helped open her mouth (Brian has a lot of experience with that from work) and the lady could barely see anything in there and she said, looks good. Then they weighed her and she weighed 16 and a half pounds, and she is 71cm tall. Then they had us take off her socks to count and make sure she had all 10 toes and then checked her skin on her stomach and back. Then she was pronounced a healthy baby, which she is, so I'm not complaining, it was just a little bit funny how they did the whole thing.

Then we went over the papers with Jane for her visa. Jane(our guide) is going to go do all of the paperwork for us, so we have the afternoon off today to shop and relax.

So we ventured out for a little while before Meigan was ready for a nap and browsed the stores around the Hotel. We are staying in the Victory Hotel, West Building. It is quite nice, very old, but renovated and quite elegant. There is a computer in our room we can use for free and a water filtration system in the bathroom for drinking water. There is a play room with toys for the kids to play with a few floors below us also. There is even a king size bed in our room instead of two twin beds, and it is even soft. Not american soft but softer that Nanning. We borrowed a stroller from one of the shops we took our laundry to, it is free if you use their services and tried to push Meigan in it, but she hated it! She just cried and said Mama over and over again. So Brian pushed around an empty stroller while Jodie held Meigan. We hate to spoil her so, but it is really hard to have your Chinese daughter crying while you are walking around here, knowing that all of the chinese are saying "See she does not want to be with them". So she pretty much gets what she wants right now (not that that will probably change in the states). Meigan is also getting one of her top teeth to come in (you can see it in the second picture down) and so sometimes she gets a little cranky and sucks her thumb when her tooth is hurting her. We walked over to the White Swan today to take a look. It is a very popular hotel that adoptive families also stay at and it has a beautiful lobby with a gorgeous waterfall and pond with koi fish in it. Meigan just stared at the fish and watched them go back and forth. She should get along just fine at our house with all of the different types of fish we have. Hopefully they are making it just fine while we are gone, I have not heard of any catastrophes yet.

After that we looked at a few different shops and then put Meigan down for a nap. We proceeded to order Papa John's Pizza and had it delivered to our Hotel. The smell of chinese food still makes Brian's stomach churn. The pizza was good, just like in the USA.

Guangzhou is very different that what I had pictured. We are staying on a small island called Shamian Island, that is very European looking. It was settled by the Europeans in China and they have carried the look ever since. It is much cleaner than I had thought. It is very touristy compared to Nanning. In Nanning we couldn't hardly find a place to buy souvenirs and they didn't have a clue what postcards are, but in Guangzhou it is peppered with shops that sell all of the touristy stuff and it is the same stuff, store after store.

Well we are off to go shopping and explore the island a little so have a good morning and we'll write more later. PS- You'll have to notice the pearl bracelet on Meigan in the photo above that we have made for her back in Beihai, she looks so cute with it on!