GuangZhou - The First Day of Phase II

Any day with a 4:30 am wake-up call is bound to be disastrous, and although our flight on Shenzhen Air went extremely well - Micah was barely aware he was on an airplane much less leaving the province he's lived in his entire 16 months - the rest of the day has been completely downhill.

At the airport in GuangZhou, we were met by a representative of the White Swan Hotel. We were expecting our guide, Lucy, to make an appearance. Fortunately all nine of us and all the luggage fit in the small van. At the hotel, it took a bit to get into our rooms. Worth the wait for us, since we're on a true non-smoking floor, and have been upgraded to a room with a view of the Pearl River. Our guide finally turned up and gave us a brief rundown of tomorrow's plans. Compared to Eric, I'm not impressed thus far.

Steve's Blackberry still does not work, so both of us want to kill the person at Princeton who said that it would work for phone service and for Steve to get work-related email while in China. In Wuhan service was expected to be iffy, but it should have worked in Beijing and here and it doesn't. Rack that one up as a mini-disaster.

We almost got Thea into her bathing suit and to the pool. She's been resisting - and in Wuhan, the indoor pool was so hot and humid, not a big deal. We had her dressed with a minimum of hassle, Micah was in his swim diaper and trunks, and it started thundering and raining, so we decided against going out. It was over in 20 minutes.

Then Thea and I went on an exploring trip around the hotel while Steve and Micah napped. We checked out the pools, went to look at the waterfall and koi pond, took a look at the playroom (too noisy for Thea and the toys were too baby/toddler oriented). While walking around the second-floor part of the hotel, coming out from one side of the waterfall to the other, I missed a step - just a little three-inch high thing that seem to be everywhere in China - and came crashing down, taking Thea down with me onto the marble floor. Fortunately she was ok and I'll see how I wake up tomorrow, probably a little sore. Slight amplification on the disaster-meter.

After we went back to the room, we woke up the boys and I was playing on the bed with Micah and he headbutted me. I never thought that when someone catches you square on the bridge of your nose (with glasses on) that it would be as painful as it was. My eyes teared and it just throbbed. Fortunately Micah was none the worse for the incident and went on playing as if nothing happened. Another notch upward on the D-M.

Lucy suggested a restaurant down the street for Cantonese cuisine. We walked with the Cash family and finally decided on one with fish in the front as the guide as described. Fish swimming in tanks, and sand worms, and water beetles, and fingerling/baby fish, it was a zoologist's wet dream. Mary was in charge of the menu and she said she was hard pressed to find four dishes that didn't come with worms, bugs, jellyfish or the like. (Eric, our Wuhan guide, told us that people in GuangZhou eat everything on the table except for the legs (of the table) and he was not kidding.) This place had all the makings for an episode of "Survivor." I don't know if this was some sort of revenge on her part for our questioning why she wasn't at the airport or an innocent recommendation.

The restaurant put us in our own little room - which was nice, but it also was more humid than the rest of the place. Thea hadn't napped so she was irritable and itchy from a bug bite on her foot, so after I ate I took both Thea and Micah back to the hotel. After showering off, having a box of milk and brushing her teeth, she was dead to the world.

Steve came back a bit later and we were trying to find the few things that got packed and not found - which at the moment is my toothbrush and Thea's. Fortunately the hotel provided two toothbrushes, so I just used those for now. Micah has sort of learned how to slide off the bed without face-planting himself on the floor, but that didn't save him from faceplanting in the marble-floored entry way. I have never heard him cry so loudly, it was just horrible. So that was the final coupe-de-grace of the disaster that was today. Unless this computer crashes, which has happened to me a few times on our 2004 trip.

Anyway, four more days to go, so long as I don't screw up on the visa paperwork. Please keep fingers crossed and offer good thoughts to the deity of your choice.