Excerpts From My China Journal - Nov. 11, 2014

All settled in, in our apartment in Guangzhou (GZ), though it wasn't easy!!  We got into the taxi okay from the plane and I gave the driver the address of the South And North International Apartments and he drove to a barricade and gestured and looked at the address again.  Said something in Chinese and drove off.  Drove back to the barricade and pointed and chattered.  Drove off again.  Drove back.  By this time, he was talking to himself constantly.  Finally, he gestured enough to mean, "This is as close as I can get.  Your address is up this road.  I can't take you any closer."  Was he KIDDING?!?!  He was going to drop us off in this "Times Square on New Year's Eve" crowd not knowing where we were, not knowing the language, not knowing a soul in the city, with 3 suitcases, 4 backpacks and 2 kids, one who could drop at any second in a screaming tantrum??  Was this guy NUTS???  By the time I could process what was happening, our bags were unloaded from the trunk, the kids were standing in the street and a guy had just claimed the cab for himself and was sitting in the backseat!  I had no choice.  We stacked the luggage the best we could (thank GOD Mei was so helpful!!  Yang wouldn't carry her backpack, saying it was too heavy.)  Nearly in tears, we cut our way through the crowd, in search of our apartment building.   I kept thinking, "This is like being in the Amazing Race!"

This was the maze we had to find our way through.  The tall building is our apartment building.

I asked this guard where it was and he sent us this way.  I asked that shopkeeper where it was and he sent us that way.  Dodging traffic, ignoring stares, pushing our way through crowds, dodging potholes that our luggage fell into, urging Yang to keep up, we searched and searched as I cursed the taxi driver under my breath.  At loooooong last, when I was just about to have a nervous breakdown, I saw the sign.  We MADE it!!!  It was very nice - everything in marble.  Our apartment was on the 17th floor (of 35) and 757sq.ft., marble floors, large TV, kitchenette, beds upstairs in a loft.  Super nice!!  Other than the difficulty finding it, way more adoptive families should stay here and ditch The Garden, with its prices 3-4X what this costs!  It even had an all-in-one washer/dryer though it is all in Chinese, and operating it is hit or miss...

View from the living room.  See Maylee upstairs in the bed?

I had a love-hate relationship with this washer/dryer!  I loved it because of what it was, but I hated it because I didn't know how to use it!!  Sometimes I'd put the load in for 4:35 (yes, that's hours:minutes!) and the clothes would still come out damp!  Finally, about 3 days before check-out, a man from the hotel showed me how to use it.  LOL

The next couple of days were kind of dull.  Walked around another mall, searched for snacks and I looked for food I could tolerate.  The girls ate a couple of times in restaurants while I tried not to retch from the smell or sight of their food.  Surviving on granola bars, for the most part.  :o(

Yang continues with tantrums.  She just simply can not tolerate being told no.  If I put her on a time out, all hell breaks loose!  It's been really hard.  She is SO independent and willful that any attempts to control her (like making her hold my hand while near traffic) makes her lose it.  How in the world did she manage in an orphanage setting??  When she is not losing her temper, she is such a delight!!

Mei's 14th birthday was yesterday, marking a very big milestone for an orphan in China.  To help her celebrate, she got to FaceTime with her friend Xia from the orphanage!  This made her VERY happy.  :o)