Guangzhou

Our last day in Nanchang was nuts.  John contracted food or water poisoning or something.  He was beyond sick.  We're talking bedridden sick.  So, that left everything up to me to take care of before we left...Maya's passport, taking Maya to lunch and packing up all our stuff to head to Guangzhou.  I felt horrible for John, especially because we had to hop on a plane in the evening.  The airport was a story in itself.  Maya flipped out as we said bye to our guide Jenny (who she loved).  We got her up to security and she didn't want to walk through the metal detector.  Of course it beeped for me so I had to stand on a pedestal and have a guard do the wand deal on me while Maya went into full blown tantrum mode.  Then another guard took her juice cup and emptied it out.  That was it for Maya, she was at the point of no return.  She screamed and thrashed for 45 minutes.  The  family we are traveling with thankfully are the sweetest people in the world.  They sat with us trying to help calm down Maya.  The worst part is that the Chinese think nothing of staring so I literally had 80 eyes on me the entire time.  Steve told me he was staring back at them for me!!  Steve kept saying to us, you'll never see any of these people again, so who cares!  It still wore on me so I had a mini crying meltdown.  A very sweet Chinese girl came up to us to see if she could hold Maya to give us a break.  Maya wanted nothing to do with her of course.  She then came back with cookies for Maya.  Maya wanted nothing to do with that either.  John looked like he was at death's door but he didn't want to leave my side.  Thankfully, Maya finally calmed down and gave us a huge smile.  She was good on the plane ride...a little rambunctious but we kept her in line.  We met some other families through our agency on the shuttle to the hotel.  Everyone looked exhausted.  Maya enjoyed the bright, colorful lights of the buildings and kept pointing to all them for me to see.  By the time we made it to bed, it was after midnight.  We decided to wipe that day off the books.  
John woke up feeling better and ready to eat a little bit.  We had breakfast then had to go get Maya's visa photo and her medical exam.  She cried for her visa photo which made our entire group laugh.  Oh well!  I can't wait to show her the photo some day.  The building where the medical exam was done was nuts.  Crowded and packed with American families with their new children.  The best news we got this morning was finding out that Maya did not have to receive 8 immunization shots.  Obama signed off on a law that allowed Hague parents who are adopting overseas to sign a waiver for the shots.  Wow - the guy actually did one thing right!  What a relief.  The only shot she had to have was her TB test and she actually handled it better than I thought.  Kim had a sucker waiting for her when she was done.  We'll know the results in a few days.  Maya didn't enjoy the rest of her medical exams but she got through them.  We walked home with a couple from Seattle and hit the Starbucks - yea!  Maya and I sat outside and relaxed while John went inside.  I saw a group of teenage girls talking about Maya and I and I could tell they wanted to talk to me but were afraid.  Finally one of them was brave enough to ask if she could take our photo! Guangzhou reminds us of a resort town.  It's really nice and more people speak English here.  We have a great view of the city and Pearl River outside of our room (we're on the 24th floor).
Once we got home, we hung out for a bit then I sneaked out to meet our group to do some paperwork and John hung out with Maya alone for the first time.  I walked in 45 minutes later to find Maya asleep on the floor.  John said she walked around suite looking for me saying, "Mama!"  She had a huge smile on her face when she woke up and saw me.  You can imagine how much I love seeing that little smile.  
We're heading out tomorrow to do some touring and shopping.  Should be interesting.  We'll keep you posted.