Day #3-Off to Guangzhou

One more day to Brody!!! This is the morning we flew to Guangzhou. Up at 4am, breakfast on the bus on the way to the airport, check in, then everyone in our travel group went their separate ways. We have people going to many different places in China, and 2 families we met are going to Guangzhou with us, although we will be meeting 6 more families there. We flew China Air, and it was a nice flight. It was a huge plane, and I would say it was less than 1/8th full-seriously, I'm not exaggerating! Our flight was very comfortable and only 3 hours long. When the plane landed, we disembarked onto the tarmac and boarded a bus to the terminal. The terminal was under construction. Boy, was it hot, hot, hot out there on the tarmac!!! When we got inside, we picked up our luggage and met our Guangzhou guide, Elsie. She is absolutely fabulous, and I remember how nice she was from the last time we were here. Anyway, on the way to the hotel, Elsie gave us some info on our itinerary, and told us that we would be getting our babies after 3pm the following day (Monday). I didn't think I could wait that long, but I had no choice! We were taken to our hotel, the China Hotel. It is super nice! I was originally disappointed when I found out that we wouldn't be staying at the White Swan, but now that we are here I'm glad. The hotel is really very, very nice! We have an adjoining room with Mom, so we have plenty of room to spread out and the kids will have lots of room to run around. The rooms are larger than the WS, and there is more to do for entertainment in the area-parks, shopping, and restaurants. Also, the bathroom is awesome! Breakfast is included each day for all of us, and they have a large buffet from 6:30-10:30.

When we got to our rooms, we all unloaded and unpacked into the drawers. It is very nice to be staying in one place for the rest of our trip, because we can unpack and relax! We went to the 7-11 and got some snacks and pop. Elsie is going to have our driver pick up a case of waters for each family. It was fun to go into the 7-11. Snacks here are different from snacks in the US! There are Pringles chips-regular, cheese, crab, shrimp, and seaweed flavored (yikes!) We also saw dried meat and fish in packages, and many other things that we couldn't figure out what it was because the labels were in Chinese (of course!). There were also Dove bars, Ande's mints, M&M's, Haagen-Daz ice cream, and Lay's potato chips. We picked up a few things to munch on, then went back to the room. Bernie and I went to the McDonalds across the street and we all had Big Macs with fries. It tasted just the same as home. They offer corn as a choice for the Happy Meals! We were happy to just be able to eat something familiar instead of having to head out to a restaurant and try to figure out what's what since it was our first night in. We were all happy to be here, and had a relaxing evening just hanging out in our room!