Trip to China
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Monday, November 12, 2007 A FEW OBSERVATIONS -If the Chinese have traffic laws, they DO NOT obey them. In a city of 13 million people, driving is a game of push and shove. Pedestrians certainly do not have the right of way in China. -Shamian Island, where our hotel is located, is the most popular place to have wedding photos taken. Everyday, we see a lot of brides and grooms getting their wedding pictures done…some of the most gorgeous brides you have ever seen. -Many dignitaries have stayed at the White Swan Hotel (our hotel) including Presidents Bush and Nixon and Queen Elizabeth. -Everybody walks everywhere-Bart and I love it-we walk miles and miles everyday. -We’ve seen more people on bikes with loads on the back of them the size of a small house. We wonder how they manage to ride a bike with a house on the back of their bike. -American couples with Asian babies are a novelty off the island. We get stared at a lot. In our group, a family brought their six year old blond daughter Miranda who is mobbed everywhere she goes. People want pictures with a blond American child. -The Asian people are so nice, family orientated, hard working and seem genuinely so happy. Our group has talked about how we Americans can learn a lesson about being unselfish and not focusing so much on materialistic thing. Onto to an Ella Update: Today our group went to the Guangzhou Zoo. The zoo was amazing. It has a lot of animals and the place is clean and landscaped beautifully. We thought Ella would love it, but she didn’t. Every time we would go up to see an animal, she would shake her head no. I asked Jocelyn, our guide to ask Ella is she likes the bears…Ella said “No, I do not like.” We would move onto another animal and Jocelyn would ask Ella “Do you like the hippos?” Ella would shake her head no and say “I do not like.” “Ella do you like to leopards?” “No, I do not like.” Ella did this on all the animals. Apparently, Ella does not like animals-the things we learn about her everyday. Ella did, however, like the ice cream cup we bought her, so the zoo was a hit just as long as she did not have to look at the animals. Tonight we are having another group dinner. We always look forward to group dinners because after you have been here as long as we have-a group dinner is a way to kill time with friends making you laugh. Last night we had a group dinner at the hotel. Our hotel has the best barbeque buffet outside on the Pearl River. Next to the restaurant is a patch of grass that has about 20 signs saying “DO NOT TO WALK ON THE GRASS”. After dinner, Ella who thinks it is funny to be chased took off across this big patch of grass laughing. I am yelling at her to get off the grass, but she just keeping running and laughing. I took off towards the other side of the grass patch on the sidewalk and I see the hotel security guard walking out of his post towards Ella. As I am running around to the other side of the grass patch, I can hear our group laughing hysterically…they were all placing bets that Ella would turn around and run back and forth across the grass. As I finally got to the other side I had to hide a bit so she would not see me and start running back across the grass to the group. I grabbed her and apologized like 50 times to the guard. Ella and I returned to dinner and she got strapped into her stroller. The grass incident was the second time that Ella got into trouble with the security guards. At breakfast the day before she was caught feeding the fish, which is apparently against the hotel rules. The hotel security guard told us “stop the baby from feeding fish.” So Ella has already left her mark at the hotel. We are expecting to see pictures of her posted up in the hotel lobby with “Law Breaker” as the headline. We are also expecting that the Chinese government will place a special notation on her Passport and Visa saying—“DO NOT ADMIT BACK INTO CHINA”.

Breakfast Buffet   Zoo Entrance-Bart And Ella The Girls and Miranda Panda Bear Dad And Ella Mom and Ella- "No Like Giraffes"

Ella is so wonderful, but has seemed to hit a wall. She has been a little more distant the last few days. Not too bad, but I can tell she is withdrawing. We have been told that this is normal. We are trying to help her get through this. I think she is going through another mourning process and it makes me so sad to watch. I know that she will be fine so we hope she mourns as much as she needs because this little girl that we love so much deserves to mourn as much as she needs. She is a brave little girl to survive as well as she has for the amount of grief she has seen in her little life. Madison, Bridger and Hunter-Mom and Dad loved talking to you this morning, although mom started crying when we hung up. We miss you so much, hang in there…we will be home soon. We Love You!

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