CHINA: Travel to Guangzhou day

This morning Yun Mei seemed to be doing a little better.  She still has her allergic reaction itching episodes, but they don’t seem to be quite as horribly intense.  We went to the famous Tengwang Pavillion, just a block away from our hotel. 

 

It’s over 1300 years old… or at least the idea of it is that old.  The current structure was built in 1989, it’s 29^th incarnation.  Yun Mei was so good to climb all the way up to the 6^th floor! What a trooper!

Taking pictures of Stacey taking pictures of things is a bit of a hobby of mine.

This is what she was seeing

Then, we hurried back to the hotel to pack up and get ready to go to the airport.  Unfortunately, as soon as we got back in the hotel room Yun Mei stripped off all her clothes and climbed in the bathtub.  We tried explaining very carefully that we didn’t have time to take a bath and she needed to get dressed so that we could go to the airport. She hid in the corner, still naked and furious.  I explained that I have two other kids and I’m pretty good at dressing resistant children and we could do it the easy way or the hard way. Somehow my clear logic (in English) failed to convince her and so we had to do it the hard way.  She really really really doesn’t like it when she doesn’t get her way so it was tantrum time, which also sets off the itching.  She calmed down on the way to the airport but wouldn’t look at either of us for quite a while.  I think in her mind she blames me for most of the bad things that happen to her.  Oh well.

On the other hand, she will now play with me and even smile and laugh with me (daddy) as long we’re safe in the hotel room and as long as I don’t try to touch her or (heaven forbid) pick her up.  So, we’re making some progress.

Our flight to Guangzhou was delayed an hour, but other than that there were no troubles other than a strong-willed 3-year old who HATES seatbelts. I can't wait to see what she thinks about being strapped into a car seat. It’s nice to see that Chinese airlines haven’t yet caught on to the super-stinginess craze that the U.S. airlines have all adopted–--No fees for checked baggage, and they feed you.  Even on our little 1.5 hour flight there was a nice little snack.

I'm happy at the airport because I've got my chips and my chapstick.  Don't touch my chapstick.

Seriously.  Don't touch my chapstick.

First ever plane ride!

Our new guide, Kathy, met us and the airport in Guangzhou and we drove an hour to our new hotel, the Holiday Inn Shifu.  We immediately liked Guangzhou.  It’s a very big city, 13 million people, the 3^rd largest in China so it’s one of the biggest cities in the world.  But it’s much warmer here and I don’t mean temperature (though it IS.  Warmer temperature, I mean.  So, I guess I did mean that too… never mind).  It’s a far more comfortable place for us.  Nanchang was fascinating but the best word that we found to describe it is “harsh”. Harsh and stark.  Guangzhou has trees and greenery everywhere.  The people seem more friendly and open, and there is so much less HONKING!  People still drive just kind of however they want but they manage it without all the honking some how.  Taxi drivers still use their horns fairly liberally, but I think that’s the case worldwide.

Here we have a bigger room and a more comfortable bed and warmer situation with more green stuff and that makes for a happy mama and as a wise man once said: when the mama’s happy everybody’s happy, but “when mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy.”

Unfortunately, our little panda fell asleep as soon as she got in the van for the hour-long trip to the new hotel and so when we arrived at 8:00 pm she was rested and ready for several more hours of play time! -Mark