Tuesday night, we went on a cruise on the Pearl River (slightly different than the Pearl River on which Jackson is located…) We enjoyed dinner and then went to the upper deck to see the city all lit up at night - so neat!
By this time, everyone was pretty much goofy…. This was our best try at a family picture:
We spent our last day at a park in Guangzhou (of course, HUGE… this city has over 20 million people too) where we walked and saw statues of 4 goats that have something to do with the history of the city. My memory is fuzzy about it. (it was HOT again). Oh, and Samuel now weighs more than 25 pounds. Confident of that. ha.
One neat thing I love is that many people who retire spend their days at the local parks. The women do exercise classes outside (there were about 100 or so at this one) and men and women play MaoDong, a card game. Even though the cities are so big… there is a sense of community that is startling.
We left the park and decided to forego shopping. Esther was getting a haircut and we took the kids so Silas could get one too! Included was a wash and head massage… he wasn't too sure about it… but bravely was a good sport.
His haircut took about 25 minutes… it was meticulous. And only $15. Score!
Our last night in China was spent eating at our favorite local restaurant. I had taken a picture of the receipt from the first time, so we would know what to order again. We returned to the hotel to pack up; it was the Pollard's anniversary, so our guides had gotten them a cake. They were so kind to share the leftovers with us… someone polished it off…
We all finally got into bed and were so excited to be going home tomorrow!
After the last Chinese breakfast, we piled into our van about 7am. Here we are… next stop USA! (Guangzhou airport, Beijing, Chicago, then HOME)
We made it to Beijing on time and found our gate. We ended up having about an hour and a half to wait, so I took the kids up and down the terminal expending some energy…and watching the huge planes come in and out! You know when you are in a global city when the airplanes next to each other read : Turkish Air, Quatar, Malaysian, China Air, Delta, United, Korean Air, Japan Air, Singapore, Ethopian, FinnAir, Emirates, Air France, etc…
The flight from Beijing to Chicago was long. But finally over. Samuel did well, considering… only threw about 4 or 5 fits, mostly just 2 year old things like not wanting to sit with seatbelt. (didn't blame him, really, I didn't want to either). He ate every morsel of food they served and then some and slept some of the way. Then we landed about 4:00pm at OHare…. before we left Beijing at 4:30pm. Time travel!
We went to immigration and handed them the sealed envelope the US Consulate emphasized had to stay sealed… they took it and came back handing us his passport. Pretty anti-climatic… check out your newest US Citizen!
We did have to go through security no less than 6 times that day (that lasted over 35 hours), so here we are again going back through security before our LAST flight!
We arrived in Jackson about 10pm with about 25 of our wonderful friends and family!! I can't wait to see the pictures - the video is awesome!! Our gracious, generous, AWESOME friends were there to help capture the moments so our family wouldn't be experiencing from behind a lens. Samuel was understandably timid and clung to me (which is actually a good sign) but did interact with his cousins some…
Here are the two littlest… soon to be good friends. Or at least we say so.
No comments:
Post a Comment