Last Day in China… our MAD dash!

Day #9 Lovely jog, beach, sprint!, ferry, taxi, train, race!, ride from cousin, run!, made it to our flight!

I usually exercise 5 or 6 times a week, so by day #9 without running, I was feeling pretty lazy. Ok, not lazy because we’d been moving around a lot in our travels, but I was due for some major cardio. Well I got it. Our host in Hong Kong, Lionel, invited Tommy and I on an early jog/hike around the island. The terrain went from sidewalk to road to hills to creek to climbing over big boulders and even some stairs. I wish I had photos to show you. It was beautiful and my heart was pumping hard the whole time. Especially when I agreed to a race, that I knew I’d lose. I should be happy that I tried at least. I’m blaming my loss on lack of sleep, and not that the guys are faster than me.

Then I wanted to take the kids to the beach before we had to leave. I thought we could all use some calm and fun before the hard work of traveling home.

Luke is contemplating the flight home. “Will I survive??”

Lars loves his big sister and just had to sit beside her while she was playing.

No! No sand in the afro!

The only way to get sand out of Lars’s hair is to tip him upside down and rub and shake.

Yes, the kids are definitely going to need showers.

This is Luke seeing what’s inside Masie’s swimsuit. “Awe!”

While on the beach we discussed everything we’d done while in China. We made so many memories and had a fabulous time with Tommy, Xiaojun, Noel, Brickman, and Lincoln. We were ready to go home though. We were ready for our own beds. We were ready to drink water straight from the tap.

After the beach it was a mad dash to catch our plane.

We raced home for showers, packing and a quick lunch. The kids scarfed down their food in under 15 minutes. We stopped for a photo outside Lionel’s house (if you’re reading this Tommy, I’m still waiting for a copy…) and then sprinted to the marina to catch the 12 o’clock ferry. That would give us enough time to find a taxi to take us to the bus station and make the 2 o’clock train back to Guangzhou. If we could do it all over again, we would have just flown home from Hong Kong, but we didn’t know our plans when we booked our flights. With Tommy’s help we just made the ferry, found two taxies (had to fit our luggage in), and made it to the train station in plenty of time. But… there were no seats left on the train we needed! The next train didn’t leave for another 2 hours which put us 2 hours later to catch our 9 p.m. flight back to the U.S.A. It was going to be close.

Tommy left us at the train station and went back to Lantau Island. We felt abandoned. Ok, ok, not really, but it was a little worrisome to be unable to communicate with anyone and know no one as we were traveling.

We got on the train a little after 4 p.m. Remember, at this point we have 4 kids, our double, and all our luggage in a crowded narrow train. The train ride went smoothly as Lars fell asleep and we’d stocked up on goodies for everyone else. I’d even found some chocolate milk for Lyla and some chocolate with a toy (we named him Pickles) inside of it. I started a game of hiding Pickles somewhere within the folds of Masie and Lyla’s clothes. Then we’d all sing, “Where is Pickles? Where is Pickles? Where did he go? Where did he go?” So funny, as we were leaving the train a man behind us was smiling and whistling our tune.

We arrived around 7 p.m. in Guangzhou and made fast tracks to get through customs. Only to be stopped by their “thermal” scanner. Ever heard of that?? Apparently Luke had a fever!! What?!? The authorities wouldn’t let him back into mainland China if he was sick. They took our whole family out of the line to interrogate Luke on where he’d been and what medicine he was taking and how long he’d been ill… When they finally took his temperature with a thermometer, he was normal! We’d tried to explain that we’d been hot on the train and running like mad, but it didn’t help. We found a nice customs officer that took pity on us and helped us back in the security line near the front where we finally passed inspection.

Then we set out to find Xaiojun’s cousin (who didn’t speak any English) at the front doors to the station to drive us to the airport. Another hour away! The cousin did well and we ran like mad at the airport to get checked in. It was just after 8 p.m. so we had under an hour to get to the plane. Check-in, quick wardrobe change in the handicap restroom, and then on to the security line and then another customs line (so many people!)where we had to fill out more forms. We were helped to the front of both those lines. That’s the only way we made our flight. Running, running, running across the airport to find our gate. We boarded our plane while they announced, “Final boarding call for flight #…”!!!!!!

Many of you ask how we can travel with so many young kids. The flight home went very smoothly, but it’s not always the case. Usually we prepare with suckers, books, coloring, movies, and just plan to not get any rest ourselves. It’s a mental thing. Luke and I know that we’ll have to focus all our attention on keeping the kids entertained. AND plan to use the bathroom one zillion times while in flight.

This time the kids stayed awake for the dinner the airline served and then they slept long and hard for many hours. They all awoke again before breakfast and were still awake and getting restless as we landed in LAX. The layover and terminal change in LAX was the hard part. We were all a little dazed from the past week and a half of traveling. Luke and I were so very, very tired because neither of us had gotten much sleep as we’d been so concerned about keeping the kids comfortable. The kids tried to sleep again on our short flight to PHX, but only Lars conked out. Thank goodness my mom was at the airport to shuttle us home. We were good for nothing. We put the kids down for bed just after midnight and it was another couple hours before Luke and I settled into bed.

Jetlag this trip was the pits! We’ve traveled enough times to Australia to know how to handle the time difference, but we were so warn out at the end of China. I couldn’t get myself back on schedule, so no one got back on schedule for 2 weeks. I had one or all the kids awake between midnight and 4 a.m. for the first week back, and I’m still having trouble getting my normally early risers awake in time to make it to school. All worth it of course!