I am sure we will make it back home and it will take about
10 days or even opening the first bill from Comcast to get me started about the
high cost of internet. Someone please
remind me it could be worse. Seriously
the connection in Beijing was terrible it seemed if we had more than one device
on the system everything would get kicked off.
We then went “in country” to Hefei and the connection was great. Hefei is a coal mining town, not known for
internet access but the connection was great.
Now we are down here in South China at Guangzhou, the third largest city
in China and be far the most western a beautiful city, lots of modern
skyscrapers, and the neon and LED lighting on the buildings give the city a Las
Vegas style feel. Here you get to buy
things and like Vegas you get what you pay for.
You can gamble and hope the Beats by Dre are really only $30 or that the
knockoffs are good enough to last you a few years. As I have told people in the past, I have a
couple of North Face jackets that I paid $17 for here that I still use on the
very cold days. It is kind of like playing
craps, a roll of the dice and you see what happens. However, if you want to buy something on the
internet in Guangzhou forget about it!! The internet here is the worst of
all. Go figure. I own stock in Alibaba and I cannot even get
on long enough to check out my investments.
And don’t get me started on Google.
ANYTHING Google does not work in China!
It is literally shutdown. Google,
Gmail, Google Drive, even Google TRANSLATE is not welcome. Not sure what google did but is has upset the
Chinese, at least to the point that you cannot find the backdoor to anything
google related. The kid’s I-pods and
I-pads however work wonderfully, but that does not help me. We all know it’s
all about me…and Chelsea, OK it is all about Chelsea, but I miss my Gmail.
So uploading photos is difficult on best days, and nearly
impossible on every other days. So my
tactic is to blog and when the planets align post as many photos with captions
as I can before the world once again conspires against me.
Yesterday was a good day, they have all been good days but
yesterday was nice. It began with
everyone sleeping in their own bed. No
more sleeping on the floors. We actually purchased a blow up mattress in the
states and brought it with us but put a hole in it the first night. We taped it as best we could and the kids
would start on a mattress but by the end of the night they were only laying on
plastic. We burned up the motor in Hefei
so we abandon all hope for it and head for Guangzhou. Here we have 4 beds for the 8 of us 1) Ron
and Mady, 2) Michael, Myriam and Sophie, 3) Chase and Chelsea and 4)Nolan. So
we all managed to get a good sleep.
Michael woke up with a bad headache but went to breakfast
hoping several cups of the strong coffee would kill it. The planets were not aligned. Next Chase, Michael, Myriam and Chelsea went
with our guide Lucia, to the medical exam for Chelsea. Everything went better than expected. We knew that Chelsea had no left ear and were
told that everything was intact. The
hole was there, the ear canal was complete etc.
Whe we saw her for the first time we were a bit surprised to find nothing there; only the distorted
cartilage of the outer ear. No worries we will see what our options are when we
get home. Everything else went great her
BP is good, eyesight is 20/25 height weight and head size is all good. She did
get a shot though. She did not cry but was not happy about it
either. She is one tough girl who is a spitfire and only just becoming comfortabe around us.
We got back to the hotel and it was time for sightseeing. The entire group met up with another family
Myriam has been working with to adopt a little boy without arms. We spent the afternoon (a group of 12)
walking through the 6 banyan Buddhist temple the temple is 9 stories tall on
the outside and 17 stories tall on the inside.
Figure that out. We then went to
the Chen family Academy. This 18th
century home is now a folk life museum.
It once was a place for the Chen family to come together and meet for
family discussions and take the emperors test.
If you passed the test you could serve the emperor which increased your
social status. From there it was back to
the hotel for a rest and decision on dinner.
We took the bus to Shaiman Island, a small island in the
middle of Guangzhou and walked to Lucy’s where burger, fries and onion rings
were the order of the day after dinner and playing at the park for a bit we
walked over the small bridge to the highway and flagged down three separate
cabs back to the hotel.
Tomorrow given my luck I expect and eclipse…
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