3.29.09 Maelyne takes visa photo...

It was still raining last night with some lightning and thunder. The good news is the rain stopped before we all walked to the photo shop to have the babies photos for their visas. Maelyne slept well last night and she woke up at 6:30 am. It was our first breakfast at the River Garden Coffee Shop (included with the room) which is overlooking the Pearl River (this is where we will have our breakfast for the next 5 days). The buffet is huge and it is very busy. There are plenty of food assortments to choose from. Food was delicious! It was still early for our appointment at 10:30 so we just walked around the hotel lobby and wowed ourselves with a lot of asian art displays. We also took some pictures so we have a few to share. The picture taking for the visa did not take long so the families went separate ways unless interested in going to a Christian Church with Elsie. She said it will take about 1.5 hours. We have to pass on this service because we were meeting Maricel at 12:30 pm but there was some time to do some shopping. We bought more shoes for Maelyne, some arts and jewelries and other souvenirs. Now, I am really getting good at bargaining. We went back to the hotel room to rest for a while before meeting Maricel down at the second floor lobby. Our meeting time has changed to 1:00 pm instead. Maricel is the one who helped us book our 2 international and one domestic flights. She works for Lotus Travel Agency and her office happened to be based in Guangzhou so I made an arrangement to meet with her when we get to the city. We headed down to the Lucy's restaurant (same place where we had our first lunch in the city). Maelyne enjoyed her meal with chicken congee and mashed potatoes. We are happy that there was no rain, only some clouds and the temperature was very comfortable. We took advantage of the rain free afternoon to walk around and did some more shopping. The shoes are very cheap here. I have already bought Maelyne 11 pairs of shoes with different sizes and I am not done yet. There's so much to buy here but of course space is limited in our suitcases and money is already budgeted unless someone will wire us some cash, kidding.

We decided we have dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I felt like we are back in Nanchang or Beijing again where the servers barely spoke English. The service was slow we thought and Maelyne was becoming fussy and we are getting hungry, it was already around 7:30 at that time. The waitress did not even take our fried rice order so we just asked for some white rice instead. The food was not too bad but they could have done a better service. I am not recommending this restaurant to anyone. Sorry. Maelyne got some attention from the waitresses though. It was time for Maricel to say goodbye so she took a taxi to head home.

Maelyne took a bath with me since there is not baby bath tub provided in the room. She still hates the water but she was all fine after the short bath and now sleeping comfortably.

Here's some photos... enjoy...

She looks so cute...

Maelyne's first airplane ride...

At the White Swan Hotel...

Maelyne trying to walk...


With new friend Maricel...


Not enough yet, she'll have more....