Guangzhou and the White Swan

It's hotter here and very humid. The White Swan is cool - it's so big on this little island with all of it's small quaint European style buildings that it seems immense. Guangzhou has 7 or 8 million regular inhabitants and 3 million additional residents. It's the 3rd or 4th largest city in China.

When we arrived yesterday it was pretty clear and not to hot but early this morning it was very hot and very humid. It was pleasant this evening when we walked to the Victory to visit our friends Todd and Kim. We are borrowing their free internet access and letting the girls play in their large suite (all for about the same as what we paid for the small room at the White Swan and it includes breakfast!) I think we should have gotten a room at the Victory!

I had a small "emergency" because the company I work for is being acquired by a larger company and I needed help to make the transaction required to secure my stock options which will convert to shares in a larger company that is acquiring us. A million thanks to David.

We went out to dinner with the group last night but nobody really liked the restaurant and it was expensive compared the excellent restaurants we went to in Wuhan. I was disappointed because I was looking forward to Cantonese food. The food was ok. I had snails. They were good - but not as good as escargot. They were cooked in spicy (pepper) broth. I am so glad that there are so many people of Chinese decent in our group because they really know what to order.

Our friend Dr. Liang took us out to Carrefour off Shamian island to do some shopping today and helped us get some documents that I needed to purchase the stock options printed. Then he took us to a real authentic Cantonese restaurant for lunch. It was pretty good - I showed Dong Dong all the fish, snakes, and other creatures in the tank. She was mesmerized by most but I think the snakes in the cage scared her!

This evening we got all our papers together for the Visa application and took our kids to get their visa photos. One of the repeat families knew enough to get the digital images on a flash drive!

Tomorrow we go on a sightseeing tour in the morning and will take it easy in the afternoon and evening. We might take her to the pool because she did real well with her bath this morning. She still won't sit in the water but I think she'll do better if we get more toys in the tub!

I'm going to try to upload some pictures of Dong Dong - we have a few now with her smiling!

-posted by Dan