I'll get caught up, um, later?

I'm going to try a more detailed post sometime between now and tomorrow. It's been difficult finding time; we're trying to experience everything at once -- Guangzhou, Shamian Island, the baby -- it's difficult to make time, it's also difficult to get all of my thoughts together.

I also hope to take a photo safari some time today or tomorrow -- a couple of hours without the kids; just me and the camera. I'd like to remember this place, but it feels like we're speeding through at a bullet's pace. A couple of quick thoughts.

Guangzhou city: It's huge. Given our time, we won't get much of a chance to see Guangzhou; we'll probably visit a few markets.

Shamian Island: Calm, peaceful, a little fake-feeling. Infested with ladybugs (adoption-related inside joke).

White Swan Hotel: Big, fancy, filled with too many people adopting kids to make us feel like anything more than consumers at this point. The 12 clubs and restaurants are all too expensive to enjoy; one of the bars has a $10 cover charge. The gym costs $10 each time you use it, and the in-house laundry is criminal -- $2 for a kid's t-shirt, $12 for a skirt -- only the very rich and the very dumb use the service here.

I'd love to get to know the city, its people and restaurants a lot better, but it's just not going to happen on this trip. And we're ready to get home to see all of you. Just a couple more days and one very, very long plane ride with a squirmy, assertive child in our lap.