Guangzhou

This china trip from my point of view,
   Hello everyone this is Cari and i decided to write a little bit about this trip; chris will comment farther.
    Well we made it from Wuhan to Guangzhou last night like we had planned. Little miss Shekinah gave us a real work out though=) It started in the airport; we got there around 4:00pm and our flight didnt leave till 7:00. The reason for our earliness was that we checked out of our hotel @ 2:00 and had to go for her certificate of adoption and some other papers first. Our guide didnt want to be late for the flight so we decided to go strait to the airport just in case we might meet with heavy traffic which we didnt.=) After saying goodbye to our "Wonderful" driver that we called uncle (he was really great funny even if we couldnt understand him)=) we went inside and found out we cant get our tickets or get rid of our luggage till 5. Oh well no big deal! Right, well Shekinah had just woken up from a nap and was ready to go!!! (Btw she's really warmed up to both of us and is a little naughty typical 2 year old! lots of fun tho) All she wanted to do was run over the airport, and all the things we had brought along kept her occupied for 3min maybe=) Ok after an hr we could go thru security; which went fine she didnt cry or try to run away. However the 1 and 1/2 hr we spent waiting for the plane was interesting from just up and walking away, to being naughty to see what mama will put up with, or how about we ty to beg noodles from the guys across from us!! Then we found out the plane will be 20 min late=( oh no!! Well we finally boarded and were waiting for take off; the seat belt sign came on and we found out the seat belt is very very annoying lets make sure the whole plane finds out=) so she sat and cried until the plane began taking off. Yay, for Chris tho she kept her cool and just talked quietly to her!! After the plane began take off she sat up very straight and pointed out the window and before to long she fell asleep and slept for the rest of the flight.
   Elvin, our guide, met us @ the receiving area and off we went to our hotel. By that time i was very tired there was some mistake when we got there about our room but we got it straightened out; finally bed!!!!! oh how good it felt=) it was even soft=). That is my biggest complaint of this trip i think the beds in Beijing werent to bad but the beds in Wuhan were HARD with emphasis on the hard part!! Plywood comes to mind!! After the 3rd day of waking up @ 3 with pain in my legs i got smart and found a thick feather blanket in the closet, folded it 3 times and made my bed soft... ahh luxury!!
    Over all my opinion of this trip is - Its great=) i love visiting new and exciting places and China has always been 1 on my list. I like the food, well some of it, the people, having to use sign language to to fill in those words you cant say! Which for some of us its pretty many=) I like learning to eat with chop sticks, and the crowd of people we can gather in a very short time!! Yes, those Mennonite people look so strange, yes we do wear these clothes all the time even to parties belive it or not!! And no my covering is NOT a net for some small exotic animal=) ( there was a young by at 1 resturant who looked very very closely at chris's covering trying to see what was in there);) The people you meet isnt it great?!!  Cari
      picture captions
1- in Wuhan we found this huge market that sold any spice and dried vegatable it as pretty cool!
2- these old ladies in Wuhan were all standing on the street cmparing cell phones it struck me as funny=)
3- Shekinah found she likes my ipod pretty well, couldnt get those silly ear things in tho
4- inside the lobby of our hotel is huge this is the stair case that goes to the 2nd floor
5- Shekinah @ the doctor today
6- the outside of our hotel has a really nice water garden and sitting area!

Chris: I'll add a bit from my side. quan-quan is doing well, that is to say, she is not the quiet little mouse any more. I do believe the "irascible" child has emerged!  think - run away from mama at the airport and then laught hysterically when mama frowns and tells you to come.  When mama says no, cry very loudly so that all the Chinese people wonder about the mean white lady that is saying no to such a cute poor little girl.  She is a very normal 2 y.o. that didn't hear no too much...
So mama is in survival mode, she usually gets something soon after we get into a store. I try to over-react when she does the right thing and ignore as much as possible when she is disobedient.... "just a minute" and "wait" are not in her vocab.

As to how are they are doing at home...it sounds as if they are doing well. We Skype morning and evening as often as my schedule works out. Everyone has smiles most of the time.  Hope is doing a wonderful job of combing Faith in the morning. Ray managed to work for a few hours most days. I'm sure the two weeks are longer at home than they are here.  We are kept fairly busy here so we don't have a lot of time to sit around and worry. 

Chris Weaver
www.shallrunandnotbeweary.blogspot.com