Last night we arrived at The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou around dinnertime. This is probably the nicest hotel we stayed at - which was great because we were pretty tired. Julie walked into the room, looked around, and said, "Can we live here?"
The two families from Canada, from our original group of eight, were here too, so we all had dinner together. We last saw them in Chengdu on June 29 so it was great to catch up.
Today we planned a mostly relaxing day since we need to leave tomorrow morning at six for a three hour drive to the Hong Kong airport.
We swam in the hotel pool after breakfast and then shopped at a local market. Guangzhou is a huge city - about 13 million people. It is very pretty but quite hot. It would be fun to come back some time and spend a few more days here.
After dinner it was back to the pool for one more swim. As I watched Julie play with Greg in the water and saw her smiles and listened to her laughter, I thought back to that day eleven years ago when she was first placed in my arms. She was so serious. And so scared. And so sad. First she just stared. And then she cried - as if her little heart was breaking. When we woke up in the morning, we would look over and see her just staring at the ceiling. We tried everything to make her smile - cheerios and cookies and toys and tricks. Greg would have stood on his head to make her smile. And then one day she did. Little by little the tears slowed down and the smiles increased.
People tell us that Julie is lucky. And maybe she is. But I know in my heart that we are the lucky ones...
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