Allyson's First Flight....Lanzhou to Guangzhou
Yesterday we left Lanzhou and the Gansu Province. It was an experience in Lanzhou that we will never forget! The flight was 3 hours and was a trial run for the big flight home. Allyson did very well. At first she was quite nervous about the new sensations and sounds that happen when you fly in an airplane. We have learned that when she is really nervous, she will shiver or tremble for an instant intermittently. This lets us know to hold her really close for extra comfort. After about 30 minutes she was more at ease. Overall, it wasn't too bad for a first airplane experience.

We arrived in Guangzhou and immediately you could tell this city was different. Guangzhou is in the southernmost province in mainland China and has a population of 10 million. As you leave the airport there was lush greenery and flowers....it's more tropical in this part of China but it's also more "westernized".

Mike describes the cities we have visited like this: Beijing which is like New York (big city)....then on to Lanzhou which is like the mountains of Arizona (high desert, dry, cool, dusty), and now Guangzhou which is like Miami (green, hot, humid, palm trees, big city).

I am glad to be in Guangzhou where things are a little more westernized. It's like a mid-point between the "real China" we experienced in Lanzhou and America. Mike is more disappointed about Guangzhou so far, and he refers to it as "China Disneyland in America". We are on an island that was once the place where the French and English Embassies were, and so a lot of the buildings are French architecture. To him, it just seems too Americanized....for me, after 11 days here there is no such thing as "too Americanized"!

One thing we are both excited about here is the shopping. We should have time between scheduled paperwork to do a little shopping.

The purpose of our visit to Guangzhou, China, is to get Allyson's immigration visa for her entrance into the United States. On Sunday - Wednesday we work on various parts of the paperwork for getting the visa (physical exam for Allyson, photos, etc). Then on Wednesday we take the oath at the US Consulate at 4:00 pm. At 5:30 am on Thursday we start our journey home!

Here's a photo of all of the babies adopted from Pingliang on the couch in the lobby of the Legend Hotel in Lanzhou. Allyson is the one with the bow....not a great picture of her, but good of the other babies.

The night before we left Lanzhou, our group went to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. They did Tibetan dancing and served us a traditional Tibetan meal. They also had a birthday cake that each baby had their picture with to celebrate the start of our new lives together with our daughters.

Birthday Cake at the Tibetan Restaurant

We are having trouble accessing our comcast.net e-mail from here. So, if you would like to contact us please use this address: ashlynmarie1@yahoo.com Thanks!

Love,
Angela