Day 3, Nanning, Guangxi Province

Hi all,

Our last morning in Hong Kong was spent gorging ourselves at the incredible breakfast buffet, then gorging ourselves at the incredible lunch buffet at the hotel restaurant. It's a good thing, because we sure needed the energy later on! The food is amazing--you can choose from Chinese or American, or slop a mixture on your plate so you taste everything. My favorite was the small round French Toast with raisins--raisins, believe it or not!! (I'll only eat them in China from now on.) Didn't have the nerve to try the congee, although I will once we get the baby. The Chinese Lychee fruit is yummy with Papaya and cottage cheese. Fish balls for lunch with spinach noodles in a broth, followed by a WICKED green tea tiramisu!! Kevin ate a little of everything, including a delicious spinach lasagna, followed by the tiramisu.

The restaurant is always filled with a mixture of tourists, Chinese, and adoptive families. Today a lot of little Chinese girls were with their Chinese parents, so our group was smiling at them while wondering if our daughters would look the same, guessing their ages, etc. It was neat. When a little one would turn and smile at us, we melted.

City of Nanning, Guangxi province

Our flight to Nanning was at 6pm on Sunday, and we (the group) were so excited to be finally meeting our babies that Kevin led a premature rush to the gate after an announcement in Chinese. It was hilarious! Everyone started laughing, and the Chinese just stared at us. They are very curious, and yet another teacher I sat next to on the plane was reading my Chinese signs book with me! She taught us to count to 10 in Chinese.

We arrived safely in Nanning and met our guides Michael and David, who are VERY nice and VERY efficient, just like Alex. We sure love our agency. Strollers and baby food are already available for us, so we didn't have to do a thing. Emily's crib was already set up in our room, and surprisingly we didn't cry at the sight of
it. We did cry on the bus ride over as Michael explained our itinerary. We'll be filling out paperwork this morning (it's actually 5am right now and we can't sleep) and then learning some Cantonese. (Yeah, my Mandarin turned out to be pretty much useless--they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong, too!).

So, Kevin will know how to say "Baba Bao", or "Papa holds you" by 11am this morning! He's still giggling at the thought. Miss Diane (from the library), your pink soft elephant is hanging on Emily's crib, waiting for her. Gramma Lee's security blanket will travel with us at 4:30pm today (that's 4:30am Eastern daylight
time, your time) to meet Emily, as will Kasey and Kellie's cloth dolly.

What Does Emily Like?

Since we won't get a chance to talk to the nannies when we get our babies, the orphanage director provided information about our daughters' habits for us, beyond what we received on referral day. Here are highlights, verbatim, with a couple of comments from me thrown in:

What simple words and phrases can she speak? She can say "Ahah" and "Zhazha". (Gee, did she learn that from Aunt Tracey already??!!)

What kind of foods she likes most? She likes any sweet food.

What kinds of toys she likes to play with? She likes any bright color little toys.

What activity or exercise she likes most? She likes to play with nannies or crawl around. She likes to be tickled touched on her back.

What's her personality? She is gentle and not active. She often plays on her own. She laughs when she is played with.

How do you soothe her when she cries? Hold her and touch her back would soothe her.

Does she have a special habit for sleeping? She likes to hold a towel while sleeping. (Hear that, Mom?)

Does she have BMs and urinations on diaper or she needs people hold her to do that or she sits on chamber pot by herself? She peeps and poops on diaper. (I had to include that last one--it's a hoot!)

Signing Off

Ok, that's it for now. Since we don't meet Emily until suppertime we'll try and post some photo of Nanning later today. The city is already different from cosmopolitan, high-rise Hong Kong. It looks more city like, with lots of people on motorbikes and bicycles. And, once we get Emily', I may have to make the posts shorter, but since we're keeping this website as a journal for Emily, I'll try and keep up. Take care! Zaijin!

Caroline