Our hotel - Holiday Inn Shifu

So we arrived at the hotel around 1 p.m. or so local Guangzhou time on Sunday, April 14, 2013.  The rooms are nice and feel like a hotel at home.  No matter how many reviews I read of hotels, it was still hard to know exactly what we'd find when we got here.  The rooms are quite large and everything seems great so far.

There are a few outlets already compatible with our many chargers and such, and I had purchased a few adapters that we've put to use as well.  We didn't really know what our sleeping arrangements would be...if Elora would want to sleep with us or would rather have her own space.  The age 7 makes it tricky I think, and we just won't know until we meet her.  I went back and forth a month ago when making the hotel reservation...king or two singles???  Ultimately, decided two singles just in case she ends up wanting her own bed.  They call the beds single here, and that was scary, too, because I wasn't sure how big they'd be.  They are basically the equivalent of a full-size bed at home.  Heidi and I slept comfortably our first night here on one of the beds, so I think the arrangement gives us options.

It was interesting to walk into the room with no lights working.  There was a key card switch at the door to turn on the power to the room.  Sure enough, we put our room key in the slot and lights!!!  I'm not sure exactly what they think will happen, but there are also some emergency type masks in our closet...lol.  As we understand it, the water here is not good for you at all so the hotel actually gives you a couple bottles of water every day.  We do have a safe in the room which I appreciate, and at least a few of the TV channels are in English so that is cool.

The in-room internet works well enough, and it appeared we were actually going to get onto Facebook, blog, etc with no problem contrary to everything we heard about those things being blocked here in China.  It could be that they would have eventually quit working, I'm not sure.  In any case, we came prepared with a couple of VPNs.  I have been using one of them, and it is handy because we end up accessing the web through a server in L.A.  That gives us a U.S. IP address which should keep things from being blocked, and it is nice because without it, some of our pages were coming up in Chinese.  We have been able to easily use Skype to call home and locally here in China.  We were able to video chat with grandma, the kids and Tori.  After all of the flying to get here, it still blows my mind we can communicate so easily by clicking a few buttons.

It is crazy to look out of the window of a nice hotel and see all of the living areas right behind us that seem so poor.  Lots of clothes hanging outside on balconies on the way here and behind us at the hotel.  That is different to see.  I've posted below a few pics from our hotel room window.  Oh the many things we take for granted.  A trip like this sure gives you perspective on just how big the world is, how blessed we are, and how life and love are so much more important than our stuff.

We can't wait to meet Elora in around 6 hours or so.  :)  I'm trying to catch up the blog posts, because I have a feeling this will be harder to fit in once we finally get to be with her!  Can't wait to share pics and stories with you all though...