Guangzhou

We arrived in Guangzhou, China in the Guangdong province late Friday night. One weird thing we have experienced here twice now while flying on a major Chinese airline is that they do not empty the plane at a gate. Once the plane gets off the runway , they taxi for a little while and then they stop, we pile off and cram onto a bus with no seats. We get crammed into these buses with all our carry-ons and then we drive for about 5 minutes and they let us off and we walk into the airport.

We had to get up early Saturday and take our kiddos to get medical check-ups so they can be approved to leave China and enter the USA. I was not as bad as I thought it would be, but still not a walk in the park, although they did have Mickey Mouse on the floor. They also had Christmas decorations and a Christmas tree up which helped make things festive.

We had to go to four different rooms - one for checking weight, height and temperature, one for general check-up, one where they checked ears, nose and throat and last a TB test was administered That was the hardest one because they actually. took Annabelle from us for about 4-5 minutes to inject the test and the poor thing screamed her head off, but all ended well.

You could also buy booze from the vending machine in the lobby for about $10 to $30 a bottle.

After I sat through a 2 hour meeting to get our paperwork ready for the US Consulate, we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. You had 2 American couple with their Chinese children eating Japanese food while Christmas music was playing in the restaurant - that is not something you will see every day.

We then took a Taxi to the local Carrefour (French Wal-Mart) with some friends and got some things we needed to finish the week here. We like Guangzhou, things are going good, we're keeping ourselves very busy and we're ready to come home! Missing my boys!

- Jeremy

Carrefour in Guangzhou, China