more from Vicki

Beijing felt like New York City, Hefei felt like Iowaand Guangzhou feels like Los Angeles. We aredefinitely more comfortable here than any other placewe have visited. We enjoyed Beijing, but were readyto leave the high energy, we enjoyed Hefei but feltlike striped cows in a city where only polka dot cowslived, and in Guangzhou we pretty much blend in witheveryone else. I can feel all of us relaxing, andhaving the boys finally join us has also helped. The kids decided not to share a hotel room with momand dad, they claim we snore, but hey if that is whatenabled us to have our own room, it works for us. Thekids are all sharing the room next to ours and makingthe small space work. There are hotel girls in the hallway and they alwayspush the elevator button for you, and we havedeveloped this game of standing before differentelevators ( there are six ) and seeing whose elevatorarrives first. The girls think we are crazy, but itis a fun game. They know us, if I come to the roomand ask if the kids are in, they know right away ifthey are or not. We are leaving tips for the maidssince the kids room is such a mess. They deserve morethan we are leaving for them, that's for sure.Today we all had massages, Jeff experiemented and hadthis fire back massage that Kathy mentioned. Theytake fire and put it in these bamboo cups that then goon your back for about 10 minutes. It was prettyinteresting, he said it felt pretty weird and now hisback itches, but it has made his back feel better. Myguy did an incredible job on my back and feet. Onehour for about $9. It is a steal and we will probablybe back there again before we leave. Tonight we had dinner at a great seafood resturant,where you pick out your own dinner, while it is stillswimming. We were pretty unsure, but trusted Kathy tosee us through. We had wonderful shrimp, crab, clams,oysters ( not my favorite ) and as always our standbyof fried rice. We have found the fried rice to beconsistantly good, and it has become our stable mealthroughout our journey. Dinner for eight of us wasabout $22. Because it is the first day of the WinterSolstice it a day of celebration here so the resturantwas full of Chinese families.The White Swan hotel has lived up to everything I haveheard of it. It is lovely, we are on the 27th floorand the view is great. The breakfast is very good, noone has gone swimming yet ( the water is cold ) butthe pool is really looks fun. We see adoptivefamilies everywhere, and it is hard not to melt overall the children and babies. Kathy leaves us tomorrow to return to Beijing. Wehave really enjoyed spending time together. We feellike best friends, but soon we will be talking viaemail every work day again. Tomorrow we have thelocal guide our agency has been using, his name is Boband he is very nice. I have lost all track of eachday's schedule, since I don't think we have stuck toone yet, but knowing the kids I am sure that shoppingwill be part of the day. We keep telling them to getit all out of their system since Hong Kong will be tooexpensive for shopping. We will try to get some morepictures posted soon. In the meantime here is apicture of a bunge jump that Katrina and Jeff did inBeijing, hence the sore back for Jeff :) MerryChristmas to all, we love you and miss you, Vicki,