Day 14
Today was a good day! Since we couldn’t get any earlier flights out of China using our AA miles, we have 2 days on our own in Guangzhou... and we are trying to make the best of them :) We just chilled in the morning, eating a nice big brunch and playing in the bath... good times. Poppy Sue LOVES her bath time!! We haven’t been able to give her a bath every day at the same time, so we just work it in whenever possible... usually in the evening, occasionally in the morning, and apparently noon-time works too! Whenever we can’t do her bath in the morning, we make sure to check her over for new blisters/wounds and change any bandaging that needs it... which we also do at night before she goes to bed... but we only do a full body bandage change after her bath time... which is why bath time requires a bit more scheduling than one might think :)
We had Poppy take an early nap and then we experienced another first together- we got a taxi in China! And it wasn’t half as life-altering (or perhaps death-defying) as I thought it would be :) We took that little taxi all the way back to Shamian Island for some more shopping and strolling... and it was wonderful. Everything was going just peachy until we sat down on a bench for a while. Poppy wanted to sit by herself on this wrought iron bench and since it had a back on it, I thought that would be fine... and it would have been if she wouldn’t be so tiny! She decided to scoot back just as far as she could, and she started slipping through the crack -literally. Andy & I both caught her and helped her back up, but her poor little back (and the back of a knee) lost a little skin and formed blisters. It wasn’t horrible, but it kinda put a damper on things :(
It was clearly time to get off our feet and get something to eat... so, off to Lucy’s we went! Ok, seriously, it is so funny to me that we ate at Lucy’s twice since we weren’t even staying on the island... and it’s even funnier since that’s the one place where I would not have chosen to eat last time. Sure, they have wonderful salmon, but we’re in CHINA! It felt too much like an Applebee’s or something... it certainly doesn’t cater to the asian crowd... and when in China, I kinda thought I should be eating something - oh, I don’t know, Chinese?! But this time, not so much. After Andy getting sick twice, and me pushing the line once, we were both losing our appetites for adventure... so Lucy’s moved up to pretty near the top of our list :) Perspective is everything.
While we were eating (outside- looking towards the park & Pearl River), we met a family with SIX girls! They have 4 biological daughters and had just adopted 2 more little daughters at the same time!! It was really fun talking with them and watching them with their girls... we told them about our girls back home and how wonderful it will be when all our girls are together!! As this family was getting ready to leave, they told us about a random person that had wanted to give them some “tips” about their upcoming adoption trip... she had adopted a child from China several years ago and wanted to share some sage “advice” with them. Here are three of the pearls that we could remember -
- there would be squid and chickens “flying down the aisles” on the airplane (never mind that squid are sea creatures; she assured them they would be running rampant!!)
- the most valuable travel item is a hot plate (she even told them which specific brand to buy and where to buy it ... they had almost bought one just in case she was right!)
- they would receive their daughter in a dark alley with one light bulb, but don’t worry, it’s legit!!!
Oh, and another funny thing we learned from them is that to say “stop crying” in Cantonese (which is the language their youngest daughter understands) sounds like “mo(re) ham” and her name was YumYum ... seriously... “Mo’ ham, yum-yum!” They just couldn’t handle saying it without laughing :) And it has become something Andy & I just randomly say to each other now... I enjoy him so much!
By the time we left Lucy’s, it had gotten dark and we figured we should start looking for a taxi to take us back to the Marriott. Thankfully, there were several lining up in front of the nice restaurant near the White Swan... a very short distance from Lucy’s. We had yet another uneventful ride back to the hotel and then we got baby ready for bed. Daddy enjoyed some more reading and I did some more typing as she slept.
Tonight we ended with something different - a movie! It’s been a long time since we’ve really enjoyed that together (although we did try to watch a short one during one of Poppy’s naps a few days ago when Andy was feeling nauseous and wanted something to take his mind off of it). So, with the VPN in place, we were able to stream some Netflix. Thankfully, Andy had a can of Watson’s to top it off :)
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