Seeing Guangzhou

Our hotel, The White Swan

We found a great Italian Restaurant on the island. Charlotte enjoys pasta! Yay!

The families in our group who adopted from Guangdong Province in the lobby of the White Swan. We finish our adoption process tomorrow!

Charlotte was the youngest child in our group. What a pretty group of kids!! ;-)

Getting tickles from Daddy.

Having fun while walking around the Guangzhou Zoo.

At the zoo here you can go down into the monkey pit and feed the animals. This monkey jumped up onto his head. We decided to pass on the fleas. Ha! Ha!

This was a beautiful park in Guangzhou with walking paths that surrounded a large lake. Lots of adults were gathered in different areas dancing, singing karaoke, exercising, playing games, doing Tai Che (sp?) etc. We saw this in every public area. The Chinese are not embarrassed to do things in front of others/in public. We don't do this as a society back in the US. It's kind of cool!

There were lots of these types of exercise machines in the parks. This small park on Shamian Island even had a running track around it. Adults and children were always out using them. Charlotte wants to give this machine a try!

This was another beautiful park we visited with our group.

That's one large sculpture!

Charlotte loved the drums!

Our guide told us that this is one of the oldest dragons in Guangzhou dating back to the Ming Dynasty (about 600 years ago).

We visited "Seven Goat Hill". We kept thinking that our guide was saying "Seven Gold Hill" and we were surprised when we climbed to the top of the hill and saw this. :-) Evidently, Guangzhou is called "The Seven Goat City" in China. I think there is some kind of legend that gods came down and gave rice to the human race and somehow goats are intertwined in the story.

Hanging out at our hotel room. Like all babies, Charlotte loves the remote control!

What a cutie!!

This day we were visiting a traditional Chinese home. This one was built during the 1920's by a wealthy family. Most of these homes were torn down during the cultural revolution so this one that survived is a museum now.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were Wednesday were all sightseeing or "free" days for us. During this time paperwork was processed and then we go to the American Consulate on Thursday the 12th (tomorrow) in order to finish everything up. We can hardly wait to get home and settle back in with Charlotte and see Camden, Brady and Amelia! :-) It was fun to see the city while we were there.