Wednesday, July 16

In the morning, we took a car to the airport and flew to Guangzhou. The flight was 2.5 hours long and we arrived in the early afternoon. We checked into the hotel, The White Swan, located on Shamian island, right on the Pearl River. Matt had mentioned at dinner the night before that The White Swan hotel is THE place to stay if you're an American in the process of adopting a Chinese infant. True enough, as we're checking in, there were several American couples standing at the front desk.

A large, jade boat stands maybe 30 feet from the entrance.











A second interesting feature of The White Swan Hotel is its enormous waterfall flanked by a number of koi-filled ponds.











We checked into our rooms. Mine was a suite overlooking the Pearl River.



















As soon as we were settled, we walked across the street to the JM Chef restaurant. The front room was taken up with tanks of freshwater and saltwater seafood. I was especially taken with the geoduck, the water beetles, and the sandworms. Shirley was not keen on these, so we also ordered chicken and fish stomach soup, which is "good for your skin." We finished the meal with a sweet soup made of coconut milk in which were to be found Ginkgo seeds, cubes of papaya, and frog spawn (eggs.) The geoduck is basically a fine example of stupid design (or might it be--dare I say it--evolution???). Here's an animal that really is part worm, part clam. It has a shell, but it can't fit into it. What kind of goofiness is that? And how did it get on the Ark? And why?
























The stupidly designed geoduck...












We went back to the hotel and I took a 2-hour nap. We met in the kitchen at 4 PM and from 4-5, we discussed how we were to proceed with Chef Kirt. He was extremely welcoming and so happy to help us. We worked from 5-11 PM, essentially accomplishing the same as we had the first afternoon at the Marriott. This time, however, we had much more space and lots of really fine equipment. Chef Kirt not only supplies all baked products for the hotel's restaurant, but he also runs a very nice bakery. Just to give an idea of how busy they are, they run through 2,000 lbs of flour in a day.

A picture of some of the products sold in the bakery...














The chef offered to fry the doughnuts, so I stood there watching him. He used chopsticks to turn them.














The chef and Tom.











The chef and Fiona











We finished at 11 PM, too late to eat dinner. Eli Jiang brought me these desserts to eat. On the left is a dessert soup: quite black. It was wheaty tasting and mildly sweet. On the right are peanut dumplings--filled with peanut and the dough made with a rice paste.