KaiLi had a little tantrum this morning. She didn't want to get dressed, thrashed back, and hit her head on the coffee table. (Boo!) So it was warranted. We were then back to the breakfast buffet. From the last picture, my Mother-in-Law, Aunt, and friend thought we might be eating worms. For the record, those were just noodles...
Once back at the rooms, the kids played while the adults packed up all of our stuff. We aren't having the best of luck with scales this trip. Ours wouldn't tell weight, it just flashed 'low'. But this time we were able to borrow one from the Albright's! Even with the new toys and food, we were within the weight limit. Yeah!
Let's talk clothing. Like our last trip to China, we packed 4 outfits each for Brandon and myself, 5 for MeiLin, and 7 for little KaiLi. There are 5 legs of our trip which all involve packing and unpacking along with carrying our bags and kids through airports. That is what the travel guide recommended so we stuck with it. During one of our hall parties, the topic of clothes came up. The other families all brought 9 outfits for each person! Geez, I sure look like the minimalist around here! But the other part of me doesn't want to be carrying around the extra weight either... We bought Tide one use pouches for the sink. Let's take last night as an example. MeiLin accidentally dropped ketchup all down her shirt. The line was like 6 inches long...awesome. And her knees had gotten dirty while we were at the park, so we did a quick load. All the stains came out and the clothes were dry in time for packing today. Yeah!
I forgot to mention that I got yelled at while at the park yesterday by two different people. The first man was shaking his finger and making the universal choke sign, when I was trying to give KaiLi some Cheerios. Those are good for a two year old, right? The 2nd person yelled at me for not having enough layers on KaiLi. Just like on Gotcha Day, they believe that kids should be wearing 4 layers under their coats. The lady dug through KaiLi's clothing to count the layers. She only had 3 layers vs 4. So she held up 3 fingers and then did the brrrr bear hug and held up 4 fingers. Lots of parenting advice here! But what I found STRANGE were their split pants for toddlers. They are for potty training and just like it says, there is a split right at the crotch from front to back. So when these kids run around, I kid you not, you see butt cheeks from behind! So I get yelled at for my kid being cold?
The kiddos started to get really bored at this point. We were killing time until Noon when we met Mary to have lunch. We played rock, paper, scissors, let them watch the Chinese cartoons (they are in Chinese with no subtitles, but the girls would watch it), played with apps on our tablets, and then finally got them to run some more to get out energy.
For lunch, we headed back to the same restaurant as earlier in the week within walking distance across major streets. That is just unnerving, but you can tell the locals are unphased as they do it every day. We choose different meats this time. One the parents really liked but the kids didn't but everyone liked the last one. KaiLi barely touched her breakfast, so I was glad to see that she chowed down for lunch!
Back at the hotel, we had another hour to kill before our bags were picked up. The kids burned the last of their energy, we checked the rooms, potty break for all, and then headed out!
At 2:30, we headed down to check out and left for the airport. KaiLi hadn't had a nap, so I was glad that she fell asleep in my lap on the way. Once we arrived, we were able to successfully transfer her from my lap to the stroller while she remained asleep. Check! (We decided to check off items as mini-wins during our journey to stay sane.)
We loaded up all of the bags and headed to the ticket counter. All of our bags were loaded, check! Then it was off to the security check. That was where we said good bye to Mary, our guide. The officers let us use the 1st Class lane since we had kiddos, check! I had to wake KaiLi at this point, and she wasn't really happy about that. Man, security at this airport was serious. Every person had a full pat down after going through the scanner even if you didn't set it off. Kids included, even screaming KaiLi. We all made it through, check!
At this point, the airport became about 1,000 degrees. We all shed our coats and found a place to camp out for the next hour before boarding. As luck would have it, our gate was right across from a kids playroom. Check! The Dads stayed with the bags while Courtney and I took the kids over. The room consisted of a tv (that we couldn't get to turn on), a plastic toddler rocking horse, a crib, a diaper changing station, a sofa, a curtain on the window, and a curtain in front of the sofa (for nursing). That is all folks. We were surprised how long the kids played in there. Each one had a turn on the rocking horse. KaiLi had clearly been on something similar as she climbed right on and started rocking! The girls opened and closed the curtain to the window for daytime and nighttime and then used the other curtain as a stage. Quite imaginative!
Afterwards, we headed back to our seats and busted out some items from our bags to keep the kids busy. There was a little Chinese girl who sat right by us. I could tell she wanted to play and invited her over. She did stickers and a maze with the girls and then her Dad offered us snacks. They tasted like an orange fruit roll up and were quite yummy! The Dad spoke pretty good English. He owned a business and was traveling with his daughter and 3 of his employees. The people here are so friendly!
And it was time to board the plane, check! This was a regional jet with two seats on each side, so we had a whole row to ourselves! I opted to put KaiLi on my lap (she wasn't going to stay in her own seat during takeoff). She was fussy, fussy, fussy during the whole flight. Not sure if she is just working this out before the big flight or if this was a preview of things to come. We shall see... I tried to get her to sleep but that didn't happen. They feed us some food on the flight - a roll, muffin, and Chinese herb jello (that is a strange combination). The food was a good thing since we didn't have time for dinner and snacks were running low. When we arrived in Guangzhou, we circled and circled in the air. When we did land thirty minutes late, we parked in the middle of the Tarmac where a bus was waiting for us. Yep, folks, I said a bus. Just one bus for everyone. Since we had been towards the back of the plane, we were some of the last people to walk through the rain and push our way into an already crowded bus. Randomly some guy tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a seat (since I was carrying a crying KaiLi). That was so nice of him! Off to the airport and to Western restrooms, check and check! Then we collected all of our wet luggage, check! (Our guide explained later that when the airport is really busy they offload planes directly on the tarmac.)
We didn't see our guide, Jack, as expected. So we walked outside, but he wasn't there either. We went back inside to wait. It was only about 5 minutes when I looked up and saw him, "There is Jack!" He was the same guide we had in Guangzhou three years ago when we adopted MeiLin! At this point, we were all exhausted. We loaded into the van and headed out. Thankfully KaiLi fell asleep on my lap as did Macy. MeiLin and Leila played in the back seat. When we arrived, Macy was out, so her dad had to carry her. KaiLi woke up and was all intrigued by where we were. We checked into our rooms and headed upstairs. Finally at 9 we arrived in our rooms. I wanted to put KaiLi to bed, but there wasn't a crib in the room. I put KaiLi in the stroller hoping she would fall asleep. No such luck. It took an hour for the crib to arrive. We worked on getting the necessities out of the bags and getting everyone ready for bed. I didn't get KaiLi down until 10 when the crib arrived. Poor thing! I was washing my face in the bathroom and Brandon was in the restroom when I heard her cry a funny cry. I rushed into the dark room. Something was wrapped around her and I couldn't get her out of the crib. I called for Brabdon to turn on the light. Somehow KaiLi had gotten all tangled in the crib padding that surrounded the crib. It took Brandon a bit to get her out of it. I was just crying. She literally could have strangled herself. We took all of the bedding out, took out a headboard just lying at the bottom (what is that?), and only left her with a blanket. UGH! Thank you, God for not letting that end differently!
And with that our day was done, check!
Goodness you guys must be exhausted. It's just go go go ! You're doing great though. I'm sure you can't wait to get back home
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