Leaving China

Today is our last day in China. We signed up for the sight seeing this morning because we weren’t leaving town until 4:30 this evening. However, once we got on the tour (the three families that were still willing to get out), we discovered that our brains just couldn’t take in anymore. Our first stop was a Buddist Temple called Six Banyan Temple and there were different Budda’s throughout the place but I couldn’t tell you anything about it. All I heard was ‘Whawha, whawha, whawha’. Carter really needed some run time so, sadly for those poor people actually there to worship, he ran all over the temple. Most of the people loved it but I’m sure he was interrupting some. The one thing that really stood out to me was the amazing architecture and the fresh flowers placed everywhere.

Hard to see in this photo but Carter is chocolate covered from face to belly along with lots of dirt? not sure how he got so dirty at the temple. I appeased his melt down with chocolate after one of the monks had given him a hard round piece of candy that I had to take away.

After the temple we went to the Chan House, which was an ancient meeting house and school house for their clan. Chan is the Chinese counterpart to Smith. The carvings all over the house were created somewhere else and brought to the current location and put together. That part blows my mind that they can do all of that in separate pieces and place them together like they were created as one piece. Currently the place is used as a fold art museum. Guangdong Province has four main crafts – Ivory Carving, Bone Carving (mainly Camel), Embroidery and Porcelain. The intricate work is incredible!

The last thing we did on that tour was visit a ‘Provincial Market.” It was actually a government owned gift shop where you aren’t able to bargain like you can in the street markets. We weren’t impressed.

This lady and her friend wanted photos with Carter. He wasn't thrilled; especially after she had tried to take him out of the stroller and he was buckled in.

By the time we returned to our room, Carter was melting. We couldn’t get either of the little ones to nap and we were just stressed. It was an ugly day all around for personality traits to be seen. J We survived two weeks together in a hotel room with no major disasters though!! At 4:30 we met our guides downstairs to get Gracie’s passport with US Visa and the ‘brown envelope’ that we couldn’t open but have to hand over to US Immigrations. Wahoo!! We can officially take Gracie Lin home! Once we had paperwork in hand, we had our luggage loaded in a Toyota minivan and were driven back to Hong Kong. It was probably the most comfortable travel vehicle we’ve had then entire trip. We checked into the Regal at the Hong Kong airport and they put us in this huge suite. Where was this room in Guangzhou? Needless to say, it went to waste since we walked in, put the kids to bed, showered and went to bed ourselves. We fly out tomorrow morning at 9:30 to Detroit, MI and then on to ATL arriving at 5:30PM. GOING HOME!!

The Suite

Good Night Hong Kong