Tough Trip to Guangzhou

Yesterday (Monday here) was definitely the low point of our trip. The day started well - we received Niklas' Chinese passport so he could board an airplane for Guangzhou. We had been very concerned that this would not be the case, setting off a series of events that would delay our return trip to Atlanta. We road in a van to the Hangzhou airport, arriving around 2:00 pm for a 4:20 pm flight. Then the fun started ... Our flight was delayed due to "Air Traffic Control Congestion" with an "unfixed departure time". Got to know these announcements pretty well over the next 8 hours we sat in the airport. Well the situation had to do with bad weather in Guangzhou - Southern China is having the worst flooding in the last half century. At one point early on we saw the plane taxi away from the gate not to return. This and the fact that they brought out the food for us to eat there at the gate were certainly depressing signs. Still, we pretty much had nowhere else to go. At around 9:15 pm, they put us in buses and took us out to the plane (presumably the one that had been at the gate previously). Everybody was feeling pretty encouraged ... then we sat on the tarmac for another hour and a half. Finally at around 10:50 pm we took off for Guangzhou ... a ride with a fair amount of turbulence. Needless to say, this is NOT how we envisioned Niklas' inaugural flight would be. He was fussy from being very overtired and did not like being seatbelted at all. He did manage to fall asleep for a while during the flight for which we are thankful. Just hope he doesn't remember too much of this unpleasant experience for our LONG flight on Saturday. Our guide picked us up at the Guangzhou airport at 1:30 am (had been waiting patiently for several hours) and we got to the White Swan hotel around 2:15 am. After a quick shower, we finally got to sleep around 3:00 am. We had to get up early this morning for Niklas' medical check. Although we are tired and both have laryngitis, we are very happy to be in Guangzhou to coast through the last portion of this journey in the comforts of Shamian Island. Today we spent 2 hours preparing the paperwork for the US consulate appointment tomorrow (Wednesday). Tomorrow afternoon we will be shopping with Ann courtesy of the Perrys.