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The following is a list of suggested restaurants near the White Swan Hotel that CHSFS sent to us:
• Hotel Bakery and Deli – just outside the hotel to the left about 50 yards
• Shamian Cafe – just outside the hotel to the right about 50 yards
• Lucy’s Bar and Restaurant – outside the hotel, turn right and go about 200 yards
• Dim sum restaurant – 2nd floor of hotel, every morning
• Pizza Hut delivery – call 8191-2827 or 8191-2805
• 2 Cantonese style restaurants – just outside the hotel to the right about 100 yards
• Danny’s Bagels (delivery) – call 8438-5823 or email to schedule a delivery: gzbagels@yahoo.com
We had eaten at the dim sum restaurant.
It was quite good. You order off the menu (rather than carts coming around). They had a quite a few things I’d never had before. Hua Mei loved it.
We also went to Lucy’s Bar and Restaurant. It is near the park by the river. It was mostly western style food. We went to the Cantonese restaurant that had the tanks of fresh fish in the entrance. That was quite good. We also went to a Thai restaurant that we liked that was a couple blocks away.
For laundry we used a place across the street from the hotel. They gave us a stroller for the week we were there too.
Across the street from the laundry was a gift shop that we bought t-shirts and other souvenirs.
A great map of Shamian Island can be found here.
The pdf version of this map can be printed from here.
The final stop in China will be Guangzhou. All adoptive families go through Guangzhou because they need to visit the U.S. Consulate to get a visa for their newly adopted child. This means staying at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island.
The hotel is a five star hotel. The hotel has an indoor waterfall.
It has three very nice restaurants. One is an outdoor restaurant with a buffet where you choose meats and seafood and the staff then grill it and serve it to you. Another is a dim sum restaurant. We quickly learned that Hua Mei liked dim sum.
On arriving at the hotel, each family will find a “Going Home Barbie” in their room as a gift from the White Swan. It’s a Caucasian Barbie doll holding an Asian baby. Mattel only makes these for adoptive parents who stay at the White Swan.
Shamian Island is a sandbank island on the Pearl River. It used to be the safe haven where foreigners gui lao (aka yangguizi) resided during colonial European times. Colonial architecture is still evident on the island.
There are some interesting odd bronze statues dotting the island that depict colonial times.
Here’s an article about the White Swan in the Times.
