Day 9: Pack & Travel day

Sorry, no photos today. It was tiring one, but fine otherwise. Isabel sat in a high chair at breakfast; I think the lap child may be a thing of the past. I finally got my toast right. Now I'm sure to deal with a little trial and error(s) with a new fangled toaster at the next hotel.

Minnie picked us up at 1:00pm to head to the airport. A family from west Illinois with all 5 of their kids (2 adopted, one this trip, one last year) and grandma was staying at our hotel and we've gotten to know them a bit. They were off to the airport at the same time and took a flight to Guangzhou 20 minutes before ours. The security at the airport was quick and easy. Our only challenge was finding a place to change a stinky diaper. Women design public restrooms in the states, men design them here. They don't offer changing tables in the Men's rooms, so I was off the hook. The only problem was the first restroom Leslie tried didn't have a working changing table, and the one she did find she described as a "very scary shelf that looked like it could fall down at any second". She changed Isabel with one knee up in the air helping to support the shelf. At least we didn't have to do it on the floor in the passenger waiting area.

Isabel sat on our lap during the flight. She played with an animal puzzle given to us by the flight attendant and with a couple of animal "action figures" that we brought. When those got old we busted out the food. She loves the dried Gerber fruit pieces and those kept her busy for quite a while. We've been working on some basic sign language with her. She's already caught onto the sign for "more". Les would dump out a few fruit pieces, Isabel would scarf them down like popcorn at a movie (multiple pieces at a time), and then sign for more. It was so adorable and exciting to see her communicate with us that she got more, and more, and more, and...a tummy ache we think! We finally landed in Guangzhou and Leslie and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously said that she couldn't have been a better child to fly with. Jackson is a great traveler, but Isabel didn't whine or make a peep once during the 2 1/2 hour flight.

Outside of baggage claim a guy with a "Mr. Keith Vesper" sign was waiting for me, err, us. He put us on a shuttle bus, but surprisingly didn't get on. Our fate was in the hands of a non-English speaking driver and we hoped he knew where to take us. The ride to the hotel was about 45 minutes, and about half way there on the highway I looked over and saw the Toyota "Coaster", which was the same type of shuttle bus we used to tour Beijing. To my surprise, inside the shuttle bus was that family from Illinois who had been staying at our hotel in Xi'an. I waved to their middle daughter, who politely waved back not knowing who in the heck I was presumably because the windows were slightly tinted on both of our vehicles. Once she realized we could see her alerting the rest of her crew and they all waved hysterically. As we passed their bus I kinda felt like I was on "The Amazing Race". In my head I could hear Phil saying, "Teams must now take a shuttle bus to their hotel, the pit stop for this leg of the race. The last team to arrive may be eliminated."

We drove down a beautiful road right on the Pearl River just before we arrived at the White Swan Hotel. It was a great view and I began to have a feeling that this final leg of our trip would be our favorite. We pulled up to the hotel which overlooks the river and entered the lobby. I began to feel really excited...this was a NICE hotel. Apparently a "six star hotel" by the Chinese rating. The lobby felt like it too. I can just compare it to how nice a lobby is in a Vegas hotel (one of the nice ones, not the Tropicana!). We went up to our room, opened the door, and BOOM...our day was crushed. I told Les that the most disappointing part of our trip to this point was spending six hours in that place they called a children's hospital in Xi'an. Our room at the White Swan was a close second. Before I begin my room description I'd like to first say that my wonderful grandma kept a very clean home and had impeccable taste in decor in the mid 1970s. This description isn't a knock in the least against her, but if her home hadn't changed for thirty years I would've been living in it tonight. It was a flashback to grandma's guest bedroom room circa 1977. Add two chairs and a side table from her patio set. Then throw in grandpa's high tech nightstand that controls the television (19") and all of the lights in the room, including the "picture" light which shines a museum-esque light onto the bad art on the wall, and you had our room. The carpet was probably from 1977, and the bedspreads (two double beds) look so outdated that it's wigging me out thinking about their history. Yuck, yuck, and triple yuck is the only way to end this description.

We quickly got prepared and headed down to dinner which was uneventful and expensive. We dropped about fifty bucks for two sandwiches and a pitcher of an undisclosed draft beer. The food was great, just not worth the price.

After dinner we decided to stroll the streets by the hotel. The best comparison I can make to this area is the French Quarter in N'awlins. The temp out was very comfortable 70 degrees, and if there had been bars and frozen drink stands all along the street you wouldn't have been able to convince me that we weren't in the Big Easy.

We happened by a nice looking hotel lobby a few blocks away with a "V" on the front door. This turned out to be the Victory hotel where Leslie had wanted to stay, but our agency's travel coordinator nixed it. We walked in and asked the receptionist if a) there were any rooms available, and b) if we could tour a few. She wrote down 3 rooms with their prices and gave it to the bellhop who showed us each room. WOW! These rooms were nice with a capital N, I, C, and E compared to the White Swan, and a business suite with sitting area was only $90 compared to the $128 where we are currently. We put our name in for a reservation and told them we'd let them know in the morning if we could switch.

Back at the room I called our Guangzhou host Molly. She asked how our travels were and I politely said they were great. I did mention that our room was terrible and we'd like to switch to the Victory hotel. She told me she wasn't authorized to make the switch, but would contact our main travel guy and check with him. I just have to say, we may switch anyway and take it up with the agency later...it's THAT bad. So here we are tonight in a terrible room with overpriced internet. I only paid for an hour's worth of time and I have 9:39 left now, so I'm going to wrap it up. Hopefully tomorrow there will be pictures and more details on this city. I also hope to blog tomorrow from a comfortable room at the Victory hotel.