Guangzhou

Finally emerging from my sleep deprivation stupor to blog again. It's Sunday afternoon here and our second full day in Guangzhou. Our last night in Ethan's province was a little stressful as he became really sick. I don't usually freak out when my kids get sick, but when there is no immediate care center, no meds, etc, I start to get a little nervous. The antibiotics we brought did not seem to be working and the fever was not staying down even with Tylenol. At one point our guide called us and said the hotel had a doctor who would be willing to see him. We thought, "fabulous!" We were ushered into this seedy hotel room with a massage table bolted to the wall and some noodles cooking in the hot pot. The older lady was supposedly the "doctor". She did have a stethoscope which she briefly and quite randomly moved around on his chest. The diagnosis? "Probably pneumonia, but maybe nothing. Better go to hospital" was the translation. The hospital was of course a huge public clinic where we would wait for hours and expose him to all sorts of other junk. And no guarantee there would be any western doctors there. We decided to take our chances and give the antibiotics one more day to work, and thankfully they did. It's so funny here. We love the Chinese culture and people, but we are constantly amazed at how nothing is as you expect it to be here. A doctor is not really what we think of as doctor, a hamburger is not a hamburger, even a coke is just not quite right. Yes, it's beginning to feel a little bit like the movie Groundhog's day. Same hotel room, same people, same restaurants, different day. Guangzhou has been nice. It's very warm here, sunny and 70 degrees everyday. Smog is not as bad here. The city has worked very hard to become more appealing in preparation for the Asian games. Seriously, they have been working for a year or more to spruce it up. They allow half of the cars to drive on one day and half on the other day. The parks are fabulous, flowers planted everywhere. The government even ran out many of the small shop owners to make the area look less poor, I suppose. Really a big difference from when we were here in 2007. And the shop owners are not allowed to chase after you to get you to come into their store. It's kind of sad really. You can tell everyone is on their best behavior, putting their best face forward. China is SOO much about image and making sure that outsiders think that China is modern. Ethan is doing great. Last night we all slept a full 8 hours. We are still trying to figure out how this little guy sleeps. With NiNi, it took us several weeks to realize that she liked to sleep with a small blanket to rub on her face. We think there is something like that we are missing with Ethan, because bedtime is just not a happy or comfortable time for him. Otherwise, he is happy and loves to play and eat. He did pretty good on his first airplane flight. Of course it was only 2.5 hours long. Not feeling as confident about the 15 hour flight coming up at the end of the week. He loves the bus rides, looking out the window and waving at people. Yesterday we went for his physical exam in order to get his visa. Today we did a little sight seeing, mostly stuff we saw on our last trip. We are SO ready to come home. We try to talk to the girls everyday, and Meagan is having such a hard time. So are we. Missing them so much. We fly out of Hong Kong on Thursday and it can't come soon enough! The pictures are of a Buddhist temple we visited (food and incense offerings) and a folk art museum. There were kids there younger than Meagan doing incredible drawings of the art and scenery. Also some pictures of Ethan getting his adoption physical.