Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Tuesday in China we had our embassy appointment. Embassy in China is so much different than embassy in Ethiopia. Totally different building setup, and our guide could not go in with us in China. It went pretty easily. After we got back, we did a group picture on the famous staircase. We met the group for dinner that night at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel.

Wednesday we went to Shamain Island with another family from our group to do a little more shopping. We had lunch at the infamous Lucy's. Now we can say we've been to Lucy's restaurant in Ethiopia and China. After we ate we looked up and saw mousetraps in the ceiling. Oops. We did get to the pool one more time in the afternoon, and then we just grabbed dinner at the little convenience store and Starbucks. We also got our packing done.

Thursday morning (this morning) we took a private car from our hotel in Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We were worried about carsickness, but we should have worried about the crazy driving!! I just kept praying that God's covering would be over our car. We had a wonderful driver who got us door to door in just under 3 hours, but it was a wild ride! You cannot pay me enough to drive in China. NO WAY. Even the driver said Chinese driving was crazy. Hong Kong driving was much more civilized. We did get to see some nice scenery on the way, and Brendan did very well in the car. No one threw up. We were handed forms to fill out to leave China and to enter Hong Kong right as we left the first hotel, and I ended up having to hand it over to Pete partway through filling them out because I was starting to feel sick.

We got to our Hong Kong hotel at about lunchtime, got checked in, and ate in the hotel. Then we all took naps, since Pete and I didn't sleep well last night. Did I mention I am thrilled Brendan takes a 2-hour nap each day? After naps, we inquired about taking the hotel shuttle to downtown so we could take photos, but by that time it would have put us back to our room pretty late, and it was more expensive than we thought. We went to the hotel playground and then walked around the airport a little, locating where we will need to go in the morning and getting some cheaper food to eat. We hope to get to bed early tonight because we need to leave our room, ready to go, with luggage, by 6 am. By the time you all are going to bed Thurs night, we will be taking off for home!!

We are so ready to be done with hotels, airplanes, and eating out. Aidan and Iona, we can't wait to give you big hugs!! We will call you from Detroit on Friday afternoon!