We checked out of our hotel at about 10:00 AM and took a van ride out to the local airport.
Much smaller than the airport in Beijing or Guangzhou.
Our guide made sure we had no problems checking our luggage or getting our boarding passes, and this all went very smoothly. I wish I had taken a picture of the plane we flew on because it was quite the sight! The safety card on board said it was a McDonald Douglas 82/90. From the window at the airport we got a pretty good look at it. Maybe too good a look! It was very grimy, and the paint was peeling off in places. Cam looked at me and smiled then said, “Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it now, so don’t think about it.”
I agreed with him and said that I felt safe because we had Kai with us. I figure he didn’t make it this far just to go down in a crappy little plane! We got on board and it didn’t seem too bad. We took up a whole row across the isle. Tina told the boys that she had heard of much worse planes on intra-China flights, with things like seats that don’t stay upright. “Like that onee back there?” Cam asked pointing back behind us a few rows.
Hey, I’m typing this right, so everything was fine!
Anyway, we are all on the plane wondering how Hui-Hui will do. We’ve missed lunch time and don’t really have anything for him but a bottle. Tina and I belt him into his own seat between us. First time with a seat belt. So far we’ve been driving around China with him standing up in the seat with us. (You know, the way our parents did when we were little) The flight attendant gives us a pillow for him and he’s hanging out being cool. The plane taxi’s to the runway and begins to take off. Just as the nose of the plane starts to tip up, His eyes roll back and he falls fast asleep!
He did wake up about halfway through with some painful (and quite stinky) gas, but after that passed (mercifully without anything else). Tina comforted him and he went right back to sleep.
(Can you tell from the picture if she likes doing this or not?)
He woke again before landing in good spirits. He read the in-flight magazines,
Reviewd the safety instructions,
played peek-a-boo with his big brothers,
and thought the fairly hard landing was pretty funny! It was truly surreal. This little guy is taking it so easy on us that we are simply amazed!
We made it through the Guangzhou airport without too much trouble. We did make the mistake of falling into our habit of following all the Chinese people around. This is a coping strategy that has served us well for the last week, but none of them had checked any bags today, so we cleared the security checkpoint without our luggage. We realized instantly what we had done, and turned right around to get our bags but we had gone about 10 feet too far. A guard stops us, and starts talking rapidly. I don’t know if he was speaking Mandarin, or Cantonese (the local dialect) but I knew what he was saying. So I showed him my luggage claim tags a few times, and finally after thoroughly wand-scanning my entire body he let me walk through the metal detector and get our bags.
Our new guide, “Connie”, was there waiting for us with a driver, and she took us to the White Swan Hotel on Shamien Island.
We have been promising Cam and Ben for over a week that this would be a very nice hotel, and that our last few days in China would be much easier on us. I am very happy to report that it appears we were telling them the truth!
I have stayed in some very nice 4 star hotels. This is a very nice 5 star hotel. What a difference a star makes! All 5 of us are extremely comfortable and happy to be here! I promise to give you a full report on the accommodations in my next post.
Hui-Hui continues to amaze us! He doesn’t really talk that we can tell, but he is vocalizing more. And now he has started “singing”! It began to rain here as we were checking into our room, so Tina started singing, “It’s raining, It’s pouring…” to him, and he starts making singing noises along with her! He kept that up all evening. He understands a lot! I can tell him to give something to Mamma, and he will hand it to Tina. Same goes for Baba (Mandarin for father). Tina says he was saying “Mamma” I have to concede that it does sound like it, though I’m not convinced he isn’t just babbling, and I am working very hard on getting “Babba” out of him. The boys have fun teaching him to mimic silly gestures. They caught him making a prayer like gesture with his hands pressed together in front of his face. They quickly developed this to include repeated headbowing and can get him to do it by simply telling him to, “pray to Buddha”. They are hoping he will do this when we visit the 6 Banyan Temple.
Okay, that’s all for now. Please keep those emails coming! We love hearing from you!
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