Sorry for the late post, but I don’t have internet in my room anymore. I had paid for a week, which ran out Monday night. We only had two full days left in Guangzhou at that point, and although the weekly rate for internet in the room was reasonable, the daily rate is, in my opinion, a rip-off. So, we’ve opted to make the daily trek to Starbucks to go online instead, because, well, it’s free there. And they have Frappuccinos. Which means it’s not really free in the end, but at least I get my coffee fix and James satisfies his sweet tooth. Abby just gets a water, because the girl has no sweet tooth whatsoever, except for ice cream, and even then she has trouble getting through the whole thing. We made our first trek there this morning, but I only had enough time to check emails and write back to my hubby (sorry, he takes priority).
On Monday all we really had to do was check for a phone message from our guide at around noon. She was going to leave a message if there was any kind of issue with our paperwork at the Consulate. If we got no message by that time, it would mean we were good to go. We actually ate breakfast and then came back to hang around the room until about 12:30, just to make sure. No message, so we were good. We went for a walk around the island again. Spent a little more time at the playground, where Abby is still deathly afraid of the monkey bars. She is cute, because as we approach the playground she gets all excited saying “Monkey bars, monkey bars” , and then I walk her up to them and she shouts “No, no” and takes off running and giggling. She does enjoy running around and trying most of the other equipment, though. The parks here are interesting because you see a lot of elderly people trying to get some exercise, like riding a little stationary bike they have there. I think they also enjoy being there to watch the kids.
We walked around, exploring and shopping, until close to 5 pm. It was then time to meet our group in the lobby to head out to dinner. We had not had dinner with the entire group since everyone got back down to Guangzhou, so we were looking forward to getting to know some of the kids. Our guide Shiyan took us to a local Chinese restaurant, where we once again had the big tables with the lazy susan in the middle, and they just keep bringing big plates of food for everyone to try. James and I were feeling much better than when we had this type of meal in Beijing, so we were happy to sample just about everything. There were plates of BBQ pork, sweet and sour chicken, fried noodles, fried rice with shrimp (yes, I skipped that one), spicy green beans, broccoli in garlic sauce, pork dumplings, and I’m sure a few others that I can’t think of right now. Everything was top-notch. Abby had a great time sampling, and seemed to enjoy absolutely everything that was put in front of her. She also enjoyed laughing at me as I tried out the chopsticks.
We had been taken upstairs to a large banquet room, and there was a private party going on in the room next to ours. Apparently it was a wedding reception, and Abby caught a glimpse of the bride at some point. Before I knew it, she had run into their party room, and was standing a couple of feet away from the bride saying (in English) “Beautiful, beautiful”. Luckily, everyone thought it was cute and just grinned at her.
That about wrapped up our Monday. We came back to the room and Abby settled nicely into her bed to play with her Barbies. She could do that for hours, and probably will on the plane back home. I’ve been amazed at her ability to entertain herself if she has a doll of any sort around. She also will sing little songs to herself while she’s playing, and lo and behold, the girl has a very pretty singing voice. Apparently, when you adopt a kid they don’t share your DNA.
James continues to entertain all of those fortunate enough to sit anywhere within earshot. It’s been interesting seeing this side of his personality as he has gotten older. I never thought he would be this much of a clown, but he really does enjoy making others laugh. He’s been a joy to have on this trip with me.
Of course, it would be the PERFECT trip if three (or four) certain other people were here too. Because I terribly miss a million things about each of them……. I can’t wait to have everybody together again!!!!!!
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