Friday April 18th

Today we started out going to a porcelain shop (Nanchang is known for its beautiful porcelain) since we wanted to get Emmie a tea set.  Then our guide Mary took us to this amazing park called People's Park.  At the entrance is a large stone structure which she said is traditional in every Chinese Park.  They light incense sometimes in the base of it and the smoke comes out of the holes or they put water inside that sprays out.  It was a little chilly day compared to the prior days so the park was less crowded.  We saw a ton of cute little school children playing, eating snacks and lining up to walk through the park behind their teacher.  The playground itself had very interesting equipment - like a circular thing you run on like a treadmill.  After seeing the playground we walked over to a little house where they were playing mahjongs with tables that automatically shuffled the tiles.  The tiles all fell into the middle and came up perfectly stacked and lined up on the sides.  Next we walked to a fish pond where Mary bought food for Maddie to feed the fish.  As we walked further we also came to an amusement park like the rides they have a carnivals.  Michael and Maddie went on 1 ride together - she loved it!  On the way back we walked on a beautiful bridge and down below in the water were paddle boats you could rent.  It was a really cool park with all these things in one place.  Mary took us to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and ordered a bunch of stuff for us:  eggplant, fish, sweet potato (but it was white like taro and cut in rectangular strips), radishes, rice, Chinese water spinach, and a yummy pancake with a banana mixture in the middle.  Maddie tried eggplant and water spinach for the first time.  She really liked the eggplant.  The food in this region is spicy but Mary asked them not to make it too spicy for us : )
After lunch we had about 1 hr to finish packing up before heading to the airport.  Both kids fell asleep and we realized we had 3 large suitcases, 4 carry-ons and two sleeping kids that we somehow had to get to the airport!
The flight was a test of how it would be 15 hours from Hong Kong back to Newark and I have to say I am a bit nervous.  The flight to Guangzhou is supposed to only be 1-1/2 hrs but took 3 due to congestion/delay of air traffic.  Maddie fell asleep instantly but Emmie was wide awake and very squirmy.  She cried some too.
Got to the China Marriott at about 10 pm and thank god we have a huge suite again with more space and we were all so hungry after not eating dinner so we were glad to see margherta pizza on the room service menu - was honestly one of the best pizzas I have every had here in China!  There are a ton of families staying here who are adopting and also have to make the last stop at the US embassy here.  The Marriott caters to us by special touches like a baby gift basket and offering a discount on a buffet dinner to families.  Tomorrow we go for Emmie's medical exam so have to be up early to photocopy papers in the business center before 9 am.