From Changsha to Guangzhou

On Thursday (5/1) we left our hotel in Changsha, our home for the past 9 days, and headed to the airport. It was quite a sight to see all of us families (8 groups) loading up and heading out together. I thought we were getting to the airport way too early. But this was the beginning of the 3-day May Day holiday in China. As it turns out, a new regulation about carry-on luggage went into effect on May 1. They are now extremely strict about "one bag per person," and very focused on the size (as well as weight) of the carry-on luggage. As we had traveled with a laptop computer and video/still cameras in two separate carryon bags without any incident earlier, we assumed that would be no problem. But in the end, we had to reshuffle our bags and check just about everything. Even though all this work was only for a one-hour flight, we were completely worn out and hungry by the time we got on the plane. Above is a shot of us in the middle of our long wait at the Changsha airport.


Then we made it to Guangzhou (along with all of our bags). It was nice to grab a quick bite at McDonald's as we headed to the White Swan Hotel. It's a great hotel. Here is a shot of us in the lobby. It has taken us a little while to recover from the trip. That's one reason we're just now getting around to posting anything. Thankfully Emily has finally found a friend her age who is in the other Great Wall China Adoption group that has also landed at the White Swan. They are getting to spend some time together as we wait.

Tomorrow (5/4) the babies will have medical exams in order to request visas to enter the US. We are getting closer to the end! We'll leave here on May 7 for 2 days in Beijing. Hopefully we'll have time to post again in a couple of days.

Now for some more humorous photos... This first one is from the Changsha zoo. In addition to the great English translation on the sign, you can see a black and "tan" panda in the background if you look closely.
Then our group's favorite translation so far: "Stuff Only" -- intended to say "Staff Only." This is at the entrance to one of the parks we visited in Changsha.