Today we didn't have to be anywhere first thing in the morning so I desperately wanted to sleep in. The babies had something else in mind though and were all up at 6:30 am!! Argh!
Mommy needed a couple of hours to make sure everything was packed after we got ready for the day and had breakfast so Daddy took all the kiddos to the mall to walk around for a little bit. I managed to get it all packed up again and we were ready to go. Daddy and the kiddos made it back to the hotel room just fine but sadly, I can't say the same for E's bear from the orphanage and her sippy cup. There is a huge water feature/fountain/river thing in the mall, hence the name - Aqua Mall. Every time we walked through the mall there were kids playing in the water with water guns or boats or other toys. Josh found the lady selling the water guns and bought a couple for the kids to share and play for a bit. E got a turn with the gun but promptly had a major meltdown when it was time to share it with one of the other kids. She threw her bear and her cup into the water in anger. Josh was able to fish them out but since we were about to leave there was really nothing I could do. I decided to stick the bear in a ziploc bag and hopefully do something to it in Guangzhou but I feared we'd just have to throw it away. I was able to wash the sippy cup but not until we got to Guangzhou so she had to do without it for a while, which made her even madder.
Daddy had had enough of the kiddos so he left them all with me after bringing them back from the walk and went back to get us some lunch. Subway again but we weren't complaining.
I took a few pictures of the hotel room before we left.
This was 'my' room with all the babies. This was taken from the far corner of the room almost directly across from the entryway. The glass window to the right of the bed is the bathroom. There are blinds inside the window panes but they aren't quite closed all the way so you could totally see what was going on right there in the shower. SO WEIRD. I couldn't ever find a way to adjust the blinds either. t cannot figure out why anyone would think this was necessary. It didn't let in more light to the bathroom and certainly didn't add anything to the room. Probably had some crazy feng shui meaning that is lost on me!
This was taken from the entryway and looking back to where I was standing in the previous picture. There was a whole wall of windows that let in so much heat we tried to keep the curtains closed all the time.
Still in the entry way and looking back at the bed.
The connecting room's door was directly across from the bed. This is where Josh and the big kids stayed. This room ended up being so hot all the time. We think it was because it was at the corner of the hotel and had two outside walls.
I liked this hotel quite a bit more than the one in Xi'an. It wasn't a long a skinny room like most are and there were big open areas in each for the kids to all gather and have room to play. The internet worked great the whole time too!
We met our guide in the lobby and got the van all loaded up at about 1:30 pm. We made it through security and found our gate without much problem. E was still having a hard time without her special things. We had two strollers but one of them (the one we bought in Xi'an) was about to bite the dust so it was really hard to maneuver. Once we found our gate it was really crowded. E was constantly whining/screaming by this point and everyone was on edge. People started lining up to board the plane so we decided we'd line up too. Chinese airports work a little bit differently than America, or at least the people waiting do. The gate attendants would make announcements about boarding but they do it in Chinese and then in English if you're lucky but it's very hard to understand. This gate was REALLY hard to understand because the amount of people making noise in the area and the overhead speaker was very quiet as well. So when we saw the line starting we decided to get in it. That meant lugging all our carry-ons and strollers and children to the line. E did not like this idea and really started flipping out. Josh was holding her as she was flailing and screaming and biting and hitting and everything in between. The line for the airplane went right in front of a store where all the workers came out to watch the spectacle that was our family. It was wonderful. *eyeroll* R was also freaking out because of E freaking out so that just made it all worse. We stood in line like this with the whole airport staring for about 20 minutes. A man came up to us that spoke English and told us that the flight had been delayed an hour so we decided to sit down. Right when we sat down the line started moving and people were getting on the bus to shuttle to the plane. NICE. I don't know if the man was genuinely trying to be nice or just wanted us to go away. He was on the same flight and didn't say anything to us when we finally got on the plane.
We finally got on board the plane and found everyone's seats. E kept up the screaming and everything for the first hour. People kept turning around to look at us on the plane and the flight attendants kept coming over to see if she was hungry or thirsty or something. I was at the end of my rope and wasn't very nice to anybody. Especially all the starers! E finally passed out from sheer exhaustion and slept for about 40 minutes or so. She woke up pretty happy and calm and did well the rest of the flight. I don't think she was afraid of the plane because this all started way before we even got on the plane. She was more mad that we were restraining her and not letting her do what she wanted but the flight probably only added fuel to the fire. G did well and ate all my food, as usual!
We got into Guangzhou without any problems, found our luggage and our guide as well and got out to the van. We were all exhausted and hungry when we got to the hotel around 9:30 pm. The hotel is AMAZING and so nice! We all went to bed.
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