We’re in Guangzhou after taking the train yesterday from Hong Kong.  In about two hours we meet Juno.

It was recommended that we take the train here, rather than fly, just to see the countryside but then several people warned us against it because the trains are noisy and crowded.  Someone even suggested we book a ‘sleeping compartment’ for the two hour journey.  Why on earth would we do that? The same same people booked us a ‘guide’ to take us from the Cosmo to the train station.  After five days of scouring HK on foot, and taking any and all forms of public transit, it seemed like an unnecessary luxury. The train ride was neither crowded nor noisy, and was about as boring as the train ride from Toronto to Belleville (crowds and noise would have been welcomed!)  The train was also the same vintage as the Via Rail trains, slow and boxy, which was brought into stark contrast by the slick white bullet trains that flew by, leaving us in the dust.

We’re not used to this kind of luxury.  Unlike our hotel in HK, which was small but excellent, we’re staying at the Marriott China Hotel, and this one is big and American.  The luxury is almost over the top.  But, the room is lovely and large enough for us to hide things that little toddler hands will want to snatch. We’ve decided that our food this week will likely be eaten in or around the hotel, just because we’re going to have our hands full with a clearly terrified and crying child.  BUT, there are restaurants here that cater to every preference, and we had a lovely pseudo-vegetarian meal last night at an elegant restaurant that goes by the unlikely name of Food Street.

The restaurant is considered casual but we found it very stylish and it caters to all kinds of Chinese cuisines – Sichuan, Cantonese and Chaozhou. We had a tasty ramen soup with about six different types of mushrooms, bok choi, carrot nuggets shaped like fish and butterflies (!) in, probably, a chicken broth that was very tasty but slightly salty.  The bamboo and mushroom medley was a little gelatinous (which is an unfortunate adjective used in many a translation), but it was nicely flavourful if you don’t have a problem with slimy mouth feel.  Both K and I are not as slime-friendly as T, who is game for just about anything.  The wonton soup had a dark brown beefy broth, salty with a hint of shrimp flavour from the crustaceoan that T strategically removed.  Hey, we’re trying.  When in Rome…or Guangzhou, it’s eat around it or starve.  The vegetarian abalone was layered on top of sauteed baby bok choi halves, that were nice and tender by comparison to the larger, stringier vegetables from the bok choi family (we’re not sure what they’re called) – the kind that makes our hands sore trying to hang on to the plastic chop sticks as we tried to bite through the fibres.  We laughed, of course, and yearned for the downmarket wooden sticks.  These plastic ones are awful.  Nevertheless, the meal was excellent, especially the soups.  Guangzhou is, according to our guide, known for its soups and the Chinese eat soup is considered a healing food.  We’ll need it.

Poor thing, I’m sure it’s going to be a tough experience for her.  Someone kindly gave us a phrase to describe how she’s going to feel:  like she’s been abducted by aliens.  Luckily, our hotel The China Hotel Marriott, is full of aliens who have abducted little Chinese children.  Guangzhou is where the American Embassy is for China, which means all Americans adopting from China will have to spend their second week here in order to get their adoptions processed by their Embassy, after bringing the children from whatever provincial town or city they come from.  We, on the other hand are STARTING our journey in Guanzghou, which is where we’ll have Juno’s Chinese visa processed by the local government.  Next week, we fly to Beijing which is where our Embassy is, and at that point Juno’s adoption will be finalized before we can take her out of the country.

Besides suddenly going from a family of three to a family of four, the rest of the trip we’re going to be under the direction of our agency. They’ll walk us through all of the government processes and make sure we dot our Is and cross our Ts where and when we should, which will be invaluable considering we’re non-residents who don’t speak the language who are leaving the country with a Chinese child. But, our independent natures are going to be put to the test as well. When we arrived at Guangzhou East train station yesterday afternoon, a guide was supposed to meet us there to take us to our hotel. Well, no guide was present, and our hotel had a booth for the complimentary shuttle bus so we just took it. We arrived here, checked in, got our room and then within minutes received a frantic call from our local travel agent because our guide was apparently waiting for us at the train station. Don’t know what happened but she wasn’t there when we arrived – we looked for her so unless she was in the can, she wasn’t there. That we made it to our hotel on our own steam seemed to throw them for a loop. Maybe a lot of people who come here just let the agency take over but we’ve done so much traveling that it’s going to be an adjustment for us to be taken on the kind of arranged tours that we’re not used to. We’re going to have to temper our impulses and just go with the flow.

Guangzhou has a decidedly different feel than Hong Kong.   We meet Juno this afternoon so our lives from here on in will take quite a turn.  We are under no illusions that we’ll be able to trek all over town with her but we hope we might be able to get out to check out the city.  There is a massive park across the road and around us, Yuexiu Park, which from our vantage point looks huge.  We’ll probably bring Juno there tonight.  We have a stroller with us too – if she’s game for adventure, then so are we.

As always there are more and full size photos at www.filckr.com/budbug.