Things we miss:
- Our kids
- Being able to brush your teeth with tap water
- Going out in public without feeling like you are a walking display for all to stop and stare at.
Things we love:
- Huge breakfast choices with no dishes (this one will be a huge wake up call for Ellie haha)
- Wide variety of coffee choices (Latte, cappuccino etc) all day
- Naptime
Sunday was shopping on the infamous Shamian Island. You could Google the history if you want, but at some point the British owned it. We think the British have done a fine job with things they once owned. The island is a popular spot for photo shoots – both wedding and just normal magazine stuff. We will post a picture of this later. They go into these little vans to change clothes for the next shot. The heat index was around 110-114 yesterday. I don't know how they are changing clothes in between shots, since we were sweating just standing in the shade!
Sunday night we went over to the Garden Hotel to have dinner with our friends from Utah. The lobby is very nice, but our friends are not happy at all with their room. The hallway is being used as pet bathroom area, they got snubbed in the hotel restaurant and could not get served, she is seeing new bug bites on their son and is wondering if there is fleas or bed bugs in their room, English amongst the staff is not common so they have to rely on their facilitator to communicate with the hotel staff, and the internet is about as fast as dial up. We had considered changing hotels, since our rate increased early this week and our facilitator has repeatedly made it clear that she is not happy with our choice of hotels, but after hearing this couples problems, why would we move? There are so many adoptive families in our hotel and Holt International even has an office here, so this can't be that bad.
We all went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Other than the service being really slow, it was good pizza. Both our kids did great considering the length of time it took to get all things done.
Highlight of the night was after Dana took Ellie to the bathroom she came running out to Rob and wanted him to lift her up. That continued into the night and she let him carry her to the cab. This is so encouraging and will make the return trip a lot easier if she can have 2 parents instead of 1.
On Monday, we had our follow-up medical appointment to check the TB test. Ellie was not happy to be back in the medical facility, but with a well timed fruit snack distraction (provided by mom extraordinaire), she only cried a bit. Afterward, we went to the zoo – heat index again over 100 and our facilitator says there are a lot of mosquitoes, sounds like a great day at the zoo! We saw the panda bear as well as the usual zoo line up. Ellie wasn't terribly interested in the animals and didn't want to get out of the stroller, but all in all, it was a good outing.
For lunch we wanted to pick up some fast food noodle something on the way back to the hotel. Our guide who has lived here for 30 years didn't know of any food near our hotel – only near the Garden Hotel, so we had to drive by that hotel on the way back to ours. The lunch ended up being a little over $7 for 2 bowls. That might not sound like much, be we can get 3 full meals at McDonalds for less than $6, so we were a bit taken back at the prices of this local restaurant. Perhaps the prices were higher since it was right across the street from the Garden Hotel.
We are having a few issues with pictures, but hope to post more within the day.
