7-31, Day 12 in China

Day 12; July 31, 2012; Guangzhou, China

Well, this is it-- our last day in China.  Tonight we take a van (three hours) from Guangzhou to Hong Kong.  We will arrive in Hong Kong late and fly out early tomorrow morning.  Today, our only obligation is to check out at 1600 and meet Richard to get Emalie’s visa from him.  We slept in this morning, ate a late breakfast, took a walk in the garden, took the kids (how odd it feels to say that!) to the pool (the water was much cooler in the morning), gave Emalie a bath and I’m packing while Sven takes Nikolas to swim again.  We will go pick up Subway sandwiches for lunch-- my stomach can’t handle any more Chinese food.  Then I will shower, do our final pack-up and leave.  This almost does feel like a pack-out for a move.  I can’t tell you how many time’s I’ve rearranged, reorganized and repacked these suitcases!!  We are all ready to go home, spread out, sleep in our own beds, cook our own meals and have our own things again.  Now if we can just survive these flights we’ll be alright!  We counted that this trip encompasses eight cities:  San Francisco, Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seattle and Denver.  This has surely been the trip and experience of a lifetime! And, to top it all off, we’ll finally be taking Emalie home!  We’ve lost track of how many times we’ve set up her bedroom only to “tear it down” and move.  She will finally see THIS bedroom.  It’s so hard to believe.  We’re concerned about all the stairs in our house considering she LOVES stairs but is still a little wobbly and a monkey, too!  Oh well, I doubt our first few days at home could be any more exhausting than these past few weeks (and months!) have been.  The jet lag is what it is and the time change is as well.  Hopefully we can adjust her to it before we all get too sleep deprived.  At least we know she can sleep because she’s been a great (and frequent) sleeper here.  Nik, too, is more than ready to get home.  I think we’re all just ‘done’.  Time to go home!

Enjoying a walk around the beautiful garden at the Garden Hotel (so appropriately named).

Can you imagine being a street vendor and having to lug all that produce around?  These people are anything but lazy!

Bottle in one hand and shoe on the other.

The chips here are just plain odd.  Check out this flavor:  Mexican Tomato Chicken.  Doesn't that just make your mouth water.....or not?!


I think she's trying to tell us something:

Hmm.... this water isn't nearly as warm as it was yesterday.  What's up with that?!

Our drive from Guangzhou to Hong Kong:

We left Guangzhou around 4 PM and arrived Hong Kong about 8 PM.  We had to check in, get the bags to our room and get everyone settled.  We finally ordered room service:  pancakes ......that took 2 hours to get!  Nikolas was on the verge of a breakdown (ok, not so much on the verge as completely over the edge).  Both kids were crying and screaming.  We were tired, worried about the long travel day ahead, and completely at our wit's end.  Emalie had a way of shedding some humor on the situation....... I think she's imitating Sven's 3rd or 4th call to the kitchen.  

"What's the number for room service? Oh, I see it right here....."

"I understand you say there's been a lot of orders coming in, but we ordered our food an HOUR AND A HALF AGO!"

"And it's going to be HOW MUCH LONGER?!?"

Hong Kong is a beautiful place.  I visited it once during my sea year- a 12- hour whirlwind tour.  We had originally contemplated spending a few days there before flying home.  On one had it would have been nice but on the other hand we might all have been one step closer to insanity had we done so.  The drive through the city to get to our hotel in the dark was spectacular.  The city lights, the bay, the vessels at anchor--- it was beautiful.  The hotel was right at the airport and we could see this plane clearly from our window.  The water is off in the near distance.