China Trip - Post 9 - visit to the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan and Xiaoting's first plane ride to Guangzhou

Thursday and Friday held two more trips for paperwork pickup for info we will need to deliver to the US consulate next week. On Thursday we toured the beautiful Hubei Provincial Museum and got to see many beautiful relics of tomb digs from some of the more ancient dynasties, and some beautiful pottery, porcelain, and bronze from a number of time periods. It was fascinating and a beautiful display.

Friday we travelled by plane (with Sarah our guide who made everything go so smoothly thru the various stops in the airport - having an extra hand was so helpful as I needed to keep up with Xiaoting. Our flight to Guangzhou was packed and we had seats scattered throughout the cabin. Xiaoting and I were together at the back of the plane. I braced myself for a difficult two hours but in the end, she was a wonderful little traveler. She was resistant to the seatbelt at first, and of course wanted to play with the tray table and window shade, but really all in all she was great and played with her toys, loved the peanuts and bathroom, and squealed with excitement looking out the window as we took off. Phew...

We landed in Guangzhou around evening. This city is much more like a tourist spot- think Florida/Las Vegas...lots of palm trees, flowers, humidity, large glamorous hotels, and lots of lit up screens and lights all around. It's a very international spot, unlike the two previous cities we toured. Sarah lives here so she knows much about the city. We were pretty shocked at our hotel (The Garden Hotel) when we arrived. It is enormous and full of people with a small mall inside and every possible amenity you can imagine. It is glitzy and over-the-top glamorous but very used to and catering to adopting families. There are lots of us here as we would see the next morning. Our two rooms (not next door but two rooms down from each other) have a spacious living room, and bedroom and ... Yes, another glassed in bathroom (not sure if I mentioned this before - our last hotel had that - luckily with curtains - but with a spunky little one around you were never quite sure you wouldn't end up on display!).

Sarah suggested "Chinese fast food" for dinner and we went with that . The guys picked it up from down the street and brought it back - delicious!! Beats our fast food any day. We settled in and went to bed. Most of us have finally adjusted to the time change (yes it took a week), but we all tend to be going to bed early and getting up early - not a bad thing actually. Enjoy the photos -