Blast!

I just lost my whole BLOOMING post because the computer randomly decided to turn off. UGH. Well, let me see if I can re-create it. First of all, I had forgotten about our trip to the Consulate yesterday so I'll start with that. The trip was uneventful but we had forgotten to bring a bottle for Maggie because we weren't supposed to bring anything and she got kind of cranky. We all swore that we had been truthful on all of our paperwork and we were done. Kind of anti-climactic. Maggie slept through it. But then we got her passport--too cute--and were ready to go. Brooke and I had to go over to Shamian Island to pick up some stuff we had ordered so when we got back to the hotel, I dropped off David and Maggie and she picked up their stroller and after about 15 minutes, we finally got a cab. The traffic in Guangzhou at 5:30 on Friday afternoon SUCKED. It was so heavy and Emma was NOT happy. Also, the driver misunderstood where we wanted to go to he took us to the Chen Clan Temple. Um, no. Finally, we got it across that we wanted to go to Shamian and we finally got there. Brooke had to go to 1 store to pick up some pictures so I sat outside with Emma. Whew, she can holler. Her mouth is BIG. Impressively so. We went to Jordon's quickly and managed to hail a cab from the street instead of going up to the White Swan. We got back to the hotel and apparently, Maggie thought I had abandoned her because she had been crying since I left. Well, until David took her out of the hotel room. I felt cranky when we got back so we just went up to McDonald's for our last dinner in China. Sad, huh? Then we finished packing our stuff because our suitcases had to be outside by 9. Everyone was impressed that we left with the same number of suitcases we came with. Granted, our stuff is JAMMED in there but still. There are some things that I didn't even wear while we were here. Maybe we'll go carry on only next time. Haha, just kidding.

This morning came rather early when David woke me up at 4:30. Maggie had cried out in the night again and I laid awake for a LONG time. Too much to think about, I guess. We didn't have too much to do since we had mostly packed the night before. We had to wake Maggie up but she was remarkably cheerful. We got down to the lobby in plenty of time as we had to be there at 5:45. One family, the Wilsons, got up at 5:30. That's 2 parents, 2 older kids and 1 new baby. The mom, Julie, said it was like "Home Alone" in their room. That cracked me up. The trip to the airport was kind of quiet. Amy went over some last minute stuff with us and had some very nice things to say that choked her and most of the bus up! She is wonderful. I cannot say enough good things about the AWAA guides in China.

There were many lines at the airport in Guangzhou but we managed to get through them with a little time to shop! Gotta spend the last of that yuan! The flight was short, only about 30 minutes and uneventful. Maggie's eyes got big during takeoff but otherwise, she didn't make a peep. By the end of the flight, she was asleep.

We let almost everyone on the plane get off before us since we were not in any rush. There were 4 families taking the flight that we would have been on that had a very tight connection. I hope they all made it. The Hong Kong airport is VAST. I bet we walked a mile in there. As you can see, Maggie is not very impressed with Hong Kong. It took us some time to get through immigration because we forgot to fill out arrival cards. Argh! We breezed through everything else, collected our luggage, changed some money and headed for the hotel desk. David had arranged for us to take a limo from the airport to the hotel. Man, I felt cool. It wasn't really a limo but a very swanky Mercedes with leather interior and burled wood on the dash. I felt really cool when Maggie let out the biggest burp EVER while we were driving along. It was hilarious. The drive over to the hotel was so cool. We went over some very large suspension bridges and through some tunnels. Hong Kong is beautiful! It sort of reminds me of New York, but it sort of doesn't. It's hard to explain. We are staying at the Ritz-Carlton and it is NICE. They were much nicer to us than they were at the Atlanta one when we stayed there on our wedding night. They met us at the door and called us by name, took us right up to our room which overlooks the harbor and the Star Ferry Pier and got us all checked in. We're on the 18th floor. As I sit here typing, I can see huge skyscrapers, barges and a Chinese junk! Way cool. Maggie really took to the hotel room and started crawling around all over the place. She especially likes the marble floor in the bathroom.





Or perhaps she is just intrigued by the trash. I am amazed by the amount of trash that we generate now that we have a baby! It is quite different than when it was just the 2 of us.
Well, I am going to leave you with this for now. I have to go meet David and Maggie for dinner at Shanghai Shanghai here at the hotel. I'll finish updating after dinner. But David has also called the bath butler to arrange for him to draw me a bath so I might be a little pressed for time. Hee! I wish we could have stayed here for 2 weeks! More later.