Today, we woke up and had the BEST breakfast ever. This hotel (a Marriott) is much more western than the previous ones. Lots of typical American selections. We especially love the variety of fruit options, since we can eat only fruit that is cut (for important GI reasons) - we listen to our travel doctors' advice! While at breakfast, we met SO many families from all over the US. We saw a baby who looked similar in age to Elise. Ironically the baby was 9 months old and from the SAME orphanage. Her gotcha day was one week earlier so they leave soon.
We met our guide John, at 9:30, to take a bus to the medical exam. Was located in a nice office building abot 30 minutes away. First up, medical exam photo. Then we went to this waiting area (pix below) to wait for our turn for the 3 types of exams: general exam (head circumference, listen to heart via stethescope, and visually inspect her entire body), measurements (length and weight - 6.2 kg), and ENT. This medical exam facility is for children who are going abroad, both for adoption and families who are emigrating.
Here is the ENT exam. It was very sophisticated. For instance, to test her hearing, he had a squeak toy. He squeaked it on the left and on the right to see if she'd turn her head. Hearing test done! He did have a variety of squeak toys....elephant, tiger, etc...so maybe one squeak toy had a higher decibel range than the other? Below is a pix of her least favorite activity - he took a tongue depressor and put it in her mouth to visualize her throat with the aid of the flashlight. I've never seen an exam like this! In total, the 3 exams took about 8 minutes in total....and then we waited for the paperwork. Whatever John did seemed like magic....we got out quite quickly and headed back to the hotel.
John showed us a park within walking distance to the hotel. It is VERY nice. The landscaping is immaculate. We anticipate we'll go almost daily. It has many activities....people dance and sing, exercise, play table tennis, rent boats, and have an amusement park.
We are walking back to the hotel. Regan's little friend is our new friend, Stella. She's a hearing-impaired 5 year old who's adoptive mother is from Evansville, IN. She is a beautiful and smart child. Her mother has noticed that she appears to hear some things...so we are very hopeful for her when she returns to the US that she can have a proper hearing test and put things in place so she can hear easily. Brett is pushing Elise in the stroller (Stella's).
After we got back to the hotel, Elise got dressed in her snazzy american flag swimsuit and headed to the pool. It is very nice...and outside!!!! She's more comfortable with the water. She even sat in her inflatable baby ring in the pool!
We were also happy to have John arrange for laundry pickup. While in Nanchang, we had some items washed. We were impressed when the shirts came back to us, pressed and in plastic sleeves. I almost didn't want to wear my t-shirt as it had never looked so nice! We also washed some items ourselves in Nanchang but once they dried (which took a few days), they weren't quite so soft on the skin. We look forward to getting our clothes back...as it takes only 24 hours!
John also introduced us to some important details....there's a 7/11 next to the hotel (our source for diet coke/coke zero) and that Papa John's delivers to the hotel. We learned our lesson tonight when we tried to order - you have to call early on the weekend because when we called, we were hit with a 1.5 hour wait.
It's so fun to see all of your pictures and read of all the adventures. Can't wait to finally meet your sweet new family member. :)
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