12 August 2007

Travel Day 11 — Traveling to Guangzhou

Posted by BaBa under: Travel .

Today marked the beginning of the end of our journey. We would be leaving Nanjing and the Mandarin Gardens today bound for Guangzhou and an all important appointment at the US consulate for Sheridan’s US Visa.

We started with breakfast and had to rush to get to breakfast. This was not because we got up late, but because Mr. Magoo was fussy because he was hungry. It was a feast day as there was fried rice at the breakfast buffet. He had a good breakfast and then we went back to the room after socializing with others in our travel group.

In the room, I worked on updating the blog and writing the entry for the pervious day. Mr. Magoo decided to learn more about cause and effect. He has worked on learning that the light goes on when the switch on is turned and off when the switch is turned off. This is a little annoying as this particular hotel has the power plugs by the desk switched with the main room lights. So for the computer to be charging or running on AC all of the lights must be on. I will not miss this at the next hotel. Well he switched the power at the wrong time (or so it seems) and the entry I was writing and in the middle of saving froze. I lost about 30 minutes of work. I had a little trouble getting it back up and running with the Internet on. However, when I finally unplugged the iPod (which was updating) I got back to the entry. I lost less than I thought, but still had to finish the entry.

I worked for a little while and then our room became meeting headquarters as everybody dropped by. We had a good time socializing and Nancy used the computer to kill her spam and send an email to her kids. It was getting time to get lunch. I packed up the computer and the electronics and we went to BK for our last lunch. I got some help from Chinese man who was interpreter when placing our order. We swapped some small talk and business cards. We had just enough time after lunch for a quick stroll around the shops outside the hotel.

We got back to the hotel and I went up to get our hand luggage (carryons). I came down and the entire group was taking a group photo on the stairs. Mr. Magoo can be seen still in his stroller asleep. He went to sleep with us walking outside window shopping at the local vendors. I then gave Min the key cards to the room. This is where I lost my gold stars for being on top of things. 25 years of keeping up with bags for 2 had not prepared me at all for keeping up with bags for 3. I had put all of the hand luggage by the TV and so quickly had picked this up. Unknown to me at the time, Magoo’s backpack with staking cups, plane and legos was on the loveseat. I got the keycards back and raced upstairs to the room. No, backpack on the sofa. I rushed down the hall and found the maid in another room. She had his bag along with some other items that our group had purposely left for them. I retrieved Magoo’s bag and got across to the maid that other items were hers.

I raced back down to see everyone on the coach waiting for me. I gave my keycards to the bell desk and boarded the coach. Whew. Not really. In my haste, I had forgotten to check out. No one had mentioned this. We were to meet in the lobby at 1pm and leave by 1:30pm, but here it was about 1:08pm and we were leaving. Gosh, I hate to be late or hold up others. Well we left and the hotel called Min. She talked with them and I gave her the charges for the room so that we could settle the account. I only owed (no prices here) for the Internet connection. All was fine, except for me feeling a little rushed and dumb.

We drove to the Airport with a sense of anticipation as to how Sheridan would do on the flight. He was not napping now and was fascinated with the armrest on the bus going up and down. This is more cause and effect learning. We only cried a little on the coach, but we recovered and arrived at the airport.

One of the new bags will not extend the carry handle. This is a pain in the XOXSS. I will have to try and get this fixed before leaving or when I return I will raise hell about it with the store. It is of course the heaviest of the two bags and the bag that does not have all direction wheels. We all stood in line and got our boarding cards and soon were ready to leave Min. She gave each of us a hug and bid us farewell. We really are going to miss her. I squeezed off a couple of shots with her, MaMa and Sheridan. I had to pull out the money bag here as I was body searched. Such fun. We finished getting through security and off for a long walk to the gate. My pants are falling down as I have no belt on and all of my cash is hanging around my neck in the open along with rolling one carry on and carrying two others. You can only imagine the picture of the dishelved Dad strolling through the airport in the climate controlled perfection. Well the climate was not controlled to perfection. No real AC in the airport so it was hotter than hell (yes there was no expletive deleted).

We got to the gate; I unloaded all of the items that this packhorse was carrying. I then set off to the bathroom to put on my belt and redress so that the money pouch was around my neck tucked under my arm and inside my shirt. I am washing up when I hear the elephant trumpet that I know can only be one thing — Magoo in distress. I had vanished from sight and was missed. This was a turning point in that I was now also missed, not as much as Mom, but was missed. All the time we waited in the Airport he was talking up a storm including the phrase boo yao — I don’t want or I am not interested. This is the first phrase that we learned last year when traveling in China. You say this to the multitude of vendors selling cheap (I wish I could give the price) imitation Rolex watches, Gucci bags and other trinkets.

We boarded the plane in typical everybody for themselves queue. We did get on the plane and get seated after stowing the hand luggage. The stewardess came by with an English copy of the Chinese paper. We took off without a problem. Mr. Magoo even dealt well with the seat belt. We played with the toy airplane. I would open the secret compartments and he would close them. He then handed it back and we repeated this for 100 times. I started to read the paper which brought his interest to the news. At one point all three of us have open section of the paper. The two adults were reading the paper and he is in the middle with his section fully open and initiating our behavior as he appears to be reading his section. I wish we had a photo of the three of us as it was a hoot to see.

He did well with the flight. He ate some of the in flight meal and learned more cause and effect with the seat belt. He learned after being shown once that the buckle goes in and snaps. Undoing it was harder and this is a good thing. We landed and deplaned by going down the stairs. I again look like a pack horse, but now with the addition of a stroller in the free hand. We got to the bottom of the stairs to board a bus to the terminal and were hit with the heat of Guangzhou. We were all sweating profusely, but Belinda was dripping buckets. It did not help that the bus was crammed to over capacity. We arrived at baggage claim and got our bags. Grace was there to meet us and we stopped outside of the McDonald’s for WC visits. We loaded too many bags and too many people into a too small van with insufficient air conditioning for the ride to the famous White Swan Hotel.

On the way amidst screaming children, we heard about our schedule for our time in Guangzhou. We arrived and were checked in quickly. One exhausted BaBa and MaMa along with the energizer bunny. We got up to the room to find a crib too sizes too small. We were able to get this changed out. We then went out to Lucy’s for dinner and decided that I would get take out while Magoo went back to the room for a bath. I also went to the 7-11 for two Fantas as we were thirsty. We were tired (I mentioned that right?) One of our bags was delivered to the wrong room. So we waited for it to appear. Sheridan ate almost a full thing of fried rice for dinner. MaMa had the last of his and a serving of her own. I had a burger (no surprise) and a piece of not great apple pie. Two of them were down to sleep and I uploaded the few photos taken today.

Sheridan had night terrors tonight for the first time. MaMa had to wake him a couple of times during the night as he was asleep but screaming. Both of them did get some rest as we slept in this morning.

Here are today’s travel photos–

First Airplane Flight as we travel from Nanjing to Guangzhou

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