Guangzhou restaurant ranks high

Saturday, April 8, 2006, 11:19 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

GUANGZHOU, China - The final leg of our adoption journey began tonight - and we started it off in style with a trip to an incredible Cantonese restaurant.
Our dinner at the Litchi Wan Restaurant ranked among the best since Pam and I arrived in China way back on March 28. While Cantonese food is not spicy, the dishes we had were perfect.
We started with fried pork and ginger. Then came the vegetables in brown gravy, followed by fried noodles with beef, pork and chicken and ending with sweet potato pancakes.
And, of course, Camryn enjoyed the fried noodles along with her own dish - a bowl of what looked like 10 gallons of congee. Whatever it was, she ate most of it.
Camryn had a good day. She was a bit cranky at the airport and still won’t let go of Pam, but she enjoyed her night out with mom and dad as well as her noodles and congee.
Seafood is the specialty in this city as well as at the Litchi Wan. Tanks of fresh, live seafood greet customers as they enter the restaurant.
Hungry for fish? They have some of the biggest you’ve ever seen. How about a lobster? They have a 15-foot one out front. Feel like eating water bugs? They have them, too.
Now, don’t ask how they prepare water bugs because I don’t know. I didn’t order any tonight and the wait staff didn’t know enough English to understand my questions.
But this really was a great restaurant - and just a short walk from the White Swan Hotel (right next to the 7-11 store, yes, the 7-11 store).

Large city

Guangzhou is much bigger than Nanchang. This city’s 12 million people swells its streets, giving us almost a one-hour ride from the airport all the way to the hotel.
The photo on the left is an aerial shot of the outskirts of the city from our jet.
Like Beijing, traffic here is almost at a standstill in places. And also like Beijing, they have tons of restaurants almost everywhere you look serving just about anything you want.
And if you get the urge to eat American, then stop in at McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken.
In fact, if I understood our tour guide correctly, greater Guangzhou has three Sarbuck's, 650 McDonald’s and 1,500 KFC. Chinese , she said, eat there for special occasions because the food tends to be pricey.
For us, I think we’ll stick to Chinese food. If I want fried chicken, I can wait until I get home. If I’m in China, then I’m eating real, authentic Chinese food.

City highways

The elevated expressways in this city often have just two-lanes of traffic going both ways. And they are all over town, helping move traffic in this sprawling city.
Of special note: The elevated highways seem to pass within inches of towering apartment complexes. At times, it looked like we could reach out the window our tour bus and touch the buildings.

Hotel room

Our White Swan Hotel room is the nicest since Beijing.
We have two double beds, a fully stocked wet bar, a baby crib and a spectacular view overlooking a river whose name I can’t pronounce because I don’t read Chinese.
But trust me, folks, this is beautiful. I don’t have any pictures tonight, so I’ll try to take some of the view and post them on Sunday.
Shopping also looks to be quite impressive here. Shops line the streets outside our hotel; many of them cater to the large number of adoptive families who stay here.

Happening today

On today’s agenda, we head to the Jade Market this morning before working hard and heavy on paperwork this afternoon for our baby’s visa.
Everything is still on track for us to get the visa Wednesday and then take the train to Hong Kong, where we will spend Thursday before heading home on Friday.

Camryn news

By the way, it looks like Camryn is a lefty. She tends to favor her left hand over her right for almost everything, including eating, grabbing objects and anything else major.
She uses her right hand. But she does favor her left for just about anything major.

Photos and text copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino.