Day 6, London’s First Plane Ride ………………..

The day started off bright and early. We were up early to get to breakfast at the hotel buffet. We had to get back to room before 9 am. The luggage picker-upper guys were to pick up our luggage and we we’re to gather in the lobby prior to 10 am to get the bus to take us the Changsha airport. We had to check out as well and pay any extra fees from the week. This would include paying for all the “vitamin” drinks one might have utilized from the hotels mini-bars.

See when you stay up late with a baby and you’ve been running non-stop for close to two weeks, what you need is a good “vitamin” drink to make sure you stay healthy. In China I’ve found that you can advertise anything you want any way you want with what ever words you want. Oh and also can’s are smaller here as well. So suffice it to say, you don’t need as many vitamins as you might back in the states.

Anyway, we checked out after breakfast and told the front desk (after they asked), that we would be checked out by 10 am. Scratch that. We got back to our room and the departure time had been changed to 10.30 am. So we had a half hour to kill less hotel room. No big deal unless you were looking for a nice quite place to change a diaper.

We made it to the airport with no problems and our local guide Nadine really poured on the charm on this last bus ride. I have to say she turned out to be so entertaining. She sang us several songs. One of which I captured on video. She sang a traditional song that mothers sing to their babies. One of the jokes was really funny when put into context but I don’t have time enough to write the joke here so ask me about it later.

At the airport we were forced to say goodbye to Nadine and Changsha, our babies homeland. Both will be missed. I kind of wondered if in some small way London knew that she was leaving. A lot of the parents looked like they had sad little girls and all of them were commenting in one way or another, “Ahhhh, look she knows she’s leaving.”

At the airport Peggy and Nadine worked with the airline to weigh our baggage as a group, which I’m not sure they did willingly, but in the end none of us had to pay extra fees. Note to any of you traveling to China. There is a 20KG limit on luggage, per person, per ticket. That is for in country (China) flights. So all of you with the 4 giant checked bags, be prepared to pay $1.50-$2.00 US for every KG you are over.

The plane was cramped. It was the smallest coach seats I’ve ever been in and I’m not a big guy. Come to think of it though, these were the same size as the plane we were on from Beijing to Changsha only this time we added 11 babies who had never flown before. And add in inexperienced parents who have 17 toys, 10 diapers, food, bottles, wipes and an occasional pacifier stuffed in a bag that all need to go under the seats for an hour and half flight.

London did great. She was fine on everything but just before the landing and it was just some mild fussy-ness. Christe and I both hope this is a small example of how easy 30+ hours will be going home with her on planes.

I almost forgot, at the Changsha airport I was finally able to snap a photo of a passing toddler in some split pants. For those of us familiar with these it’s no big deal but this pic is for those who would like some advance notice.

We were met at the Guangzhou (pronounced Gwong-Joe) airport, by our new local guide Annie and her assistant Ashley. Ashley is from Canada and he’s interested in starting a local tourism business so I guess he just tags along and watches us tourists.

At the baggage carousel I came across a somewhat odd sign advertising a DVD player. Now you’re probably going to have to click on the picture to get it as big as it will go to see what drew my attention to it. There is a man fishing on a dock in the mid-lower right hand corner. There is something oddly wrong about the 3-dimensional-ness of his left leg. Not what I’d call the best advertisement for a DVD player. It’s like saying "Hey, see this crappy picture, yeah, well, buy our product cause now you can see, we KNOW what a good picture is, yeah!”

On the way to the hotel Annie told us a lot about Guangzhou and how it’s in Guangdong which used to be in Canton so they mostly speak Cantonese, “but not to worry, most of the shop owners know Mandarin, yes, because they don’t want to miss a sale, ok, so it’s good for you”.

At some point during the bus trip Christe let me know there was an ICU nurse in our group who had some baby suppositories and she was going to have her give London one when we got to the hotel.

Needless to say London hasn’t really been on track or gotten much more out. So we're the bad parents of the group. Anyway after we got checked in Christe went to the the ladies floor and within 15 minutes we had a tough few minutes but we think the blockage is gone.

As for the ‘legendary’ White Swan, this hotel is nice. It’s very opulent. It has an indoor waterfall. There are hundreds of pieces of are openly sitting out. They all have price tags on them and even with the 8 to 1 conversion rate, 99.9% are out of my price range. They have everything form Full carved Ivory tusks to complete boats carved out of jade.

We even ran into Tom and Andrea from Beijing and they gave us Greg and Cami’s room number. I talked to Greg and he thought we could all get together the next day.

London seemed to like the room all right but the crib is much smaller here and this girl flips and flops when she sleeps. She moves more in once sleep cycle than anyone I’ve ever heard of.

I hate to cut it short but we have to get to breakfast and then where going to be taken the pearl market which is in Guangzhou and not on Shamian Island where we are.

I think my sore throat is getting better.

Signing of from China this is “Sore Throat”