Charlotte's Physical and Giant Pandas

We arrived in Guangzhou on Friday night. Guangzhou (formerly known in the West as Canton) is a city of 9 million in the south of China. The US government has a consulate here and this is where American families adopting Chinese orphans come to obtain American visas for their new children, the last paperwork step before they can go home. In Hangzhou and Wenzhou (and to a lesser extent Beijing) we didn't see many westerners. The adoptive families in China during these two weeks were all over the country finalizing the adoption process in the provinces where their children are from. But they all come together in Guangzhou.

We are staying at the Garden Hotel, a huge, grand hotel. This seems to be where most of the adoptive families are staying. They used to all stay at the White Swan hotel on Shamian Island on the Pearl River, but the White Swan is closed for renovations. We heard tales of the grandeur of the White Swan from our friends who adopted from China, but our guide Connie says that the Garden Hotel is even more grand. We have a large suite (helpful when you have a baby), including what Maura calls "the best shower EVER."

On Saturday morning, Charlotte had her "visa physical," a prerequisite for obtaining a US visa. All the adoptive families and their children gathered in the hotel lobby and were transported to a building where they were given physicals. It was chaotic and crowded. Neither Charlotte nor the other children enjoyed being poked and prodded. Connie helped us review and finalize our paperwork for the visa interview on Monday morning.

We returned to the hotel and tried to put Charlotte down for a nap but she just would not do it. Too much excitement. We walked the neighborhood around the hotel and found a store with a stylish winter coat for Bizzy. We also found a Costa coffee shop with chocolate twists, bringing back great memories of our stay with the Platts in St. Andrews this summer. Finally, we had an eat and run (Charlotte meltdown) dinner at a Malaysian restaurant near the hotel, then called it a night.

On Sunday, we woke up and had another sumptuous breakfast at the hotel (great buffet) then Connie and our driver picked us up and took us to the Xiangjiang Safari Park, a zoo/animal park on the outskirts of Guangzhou. It is similar to Disney's Animal Kingdom and Busch Gardens in Tampa, except with more emphasis on the animals and fewer rides. We started with a safari ride through an open area that included tigers, lions, elephants, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, ostriches and many other animals from around the world. Then we did a walking tour of the rest of the park, where we saw many of the same animals and others (meerkats, gibbons, lemurs, koalas, flamingos). These animals were in enclosures but it was possible to get quite close and get good pictures. Then the highlight of the day - we saw the park's ten giant pandas. The giant panda is native to remote parts of China, and is endangered. There are only about 2000 or so giant pandas left in the world. The Chinese place great emphasis on saving the giant panda, there are a few dozen reserves in the country and they have devoted a lot of scientists to the cause.

Charlotte enjoyed her day at the park, though I think she was paying more attention to the people than the animals. To avoid another meltdown, we got pizzas for dinner from a Pizza Hut near the hotel.

Tomorrow we have the visa interview, then we hope to see a little more of the city.