Guangzhou

We started the second half of our trip to China in Guangzhou. We flew here yesterday. Maria's first plane ride. She did fantastic. At first she didn't want to sit in her chair, which we kind of expected. She is not a big fan of being sat in chairs by herself, especially strapped in. We figure there were bad experiences at the orphanage relating to this. About halfway through the flight, she got comfortable enough to sit in her own chair. I think she is going to be a very good airplane kid, probably better than the two adults she will be stuck with.

There are definitely no attachment problems. She hasn't attached the same amount to everyone and sometimes it changes from hour to hour, but she hasn't ever rejected all of us at the same time. She won't let us leave the room without starting to wimper and she consistently wants to fall asleep in our arms. From what we understand, it will take her a while to become secure enough to change these habits. She is being allowed to break some of our house rules for this kind of stuff, but we figure she has suffered quite a bit her first couple of years and needs to know that she is important and special to us in ways that she has never received.

We are staying at the Victory hotel on the 'island'. There is an circular area in the center of Guangzhou that is surrounded by rivers. It is free of high rises other than a couple of hotels. There are very few cars & roads, so it is pretty pedestrian-friendly and not crowded and crazy like Chongching was. It's a nice change of pace. The pool is on the roof, so the kids think that is pretty cool.

This hotel won't let us hook up our laptops in our room. They provide one, but it doesn't have a webcam so we can't video Skype. We will probably be on tomorrow morning (tonight for you all). Talk to you then. It's bedtime now, no time for pics.

Kraig