I'm sure by now people are getting sick of me
complaining about the heat, but OMG there is NOTHING like this. I've been to
Hawaii - in June/July and that was NOTHING compared to this. NOTHING. This is
beyond belief. 97 today (heat index of 110), 98 tomorrow, 99 Tuesday, and then
we leave Wednesday. Rupert and I are really looking forward to returning to
Vermont's climate!
We had nothing special planned for today, so we slept in
and went to breakfast around 9. Our hotel’s breakfast buffet is expansive and
delicious. Yesterday was very crowded. Probably 200 people. As the only Caucasian,
I attracted much attention, without wanting to of course (I am the kind of
person who does NOT like to attract attention…but it is unavoidable here!).
Many people (mostly women older than me) were staring at me. Watching me feed
Sarah. Today was less busy. Sarah packed
it away as usual - eggs, noodles, watermelon, cantaloupe, bacon, and a big
glass of MILK (She loves milk!)
ready for breakfast
After breakfast, we headed out to walk around a little.
We went over to Shamian Island again. This time we walked along the waterfront,
and saw the playground. Sarah enjoyed watching the children coming down the
slides, but had no interest in going onto the playground. There was a
playground at Bao’an orphanage. How often she actually used it I have no idea
(my gut feeling is that while she and Aaron were both posed for photos on it or
near it, they used it very little). We had already finished our shopping on
Shamian yesterday, but needed to pick up laundry today. Then we headed back to
our room.
Happy, Happy Girl
ready for shopping
doing a dance
wanting Mama to put a fancy hairbow in, not just a barrette
After lunch, we headed up to the pool. Today was the
first time anyone else was up there at the gorgeous rooftop pool. There was a Chinese
family (father, 2 children, grandmother, grandfather) up there. The dad and two
kids were in the pool. There was a boy, about 8 and a girl about 4. The
grandparents even got in the pool – quite unusual for Chinese. We were assuming
they were from Hong Kong (they spoke Cantonese, like Rupert, not Mandarin). The
fact that they had two children made it seem like they were tourists, not local
residents. However, their mother came up to the pool area to watch them and she
is an employee at the hotel. So, clearly they are local. Sparked my curiosity
of course. There are times when families are allowed two children, but it is
quite rare. If BOTH parents are only children, they are allowed to apply for a
permit to have a second child. Some minority groups are allowed to have two
children (if both parents are from a minority group), but that was not the case
for this family. I have heard that in some parts of China, if a family has a
boy first, they may sometimes apply for a permit to have a second child.
However, that does not seem to be the case in Guangzhou, and this family was
not from a more Northern area, since they were speaking Cantonese. In any case,
it’s probably the second family I’ve seen with 2 children, since we’ve been
here (exception has been tourists from Hong Kong). The other family was
extremely well-dressed and one would assume they were quite wealthy and able to
pay for a permit for a second child, or the parents could have been only
children themselves.
Sarah had a lot of fun in the pool today. She’s getting
so brave. She’s not holding on to me as tightly. She’s kicking her legs, moving
her arms around, splashing wildly (Rupert and I both end up soaked), and dunking
her own head into the water. We were in the pool about an hour. It was great!
And then…we had our parenting fail moment again. We came
back to the room, changed out of bathing suits and I was about to put Sarah
down for a nap when the cleaning staff came to clean our room. We decided to
head out to the bakery (the one where my new friend works) to stock up on
cookies. By the time we got back, the room was still being cleaned. So we went
up to the Executive Lounge and had some snacks. Sarah had her second piece of
cake for the day. The girl loves cake! When we got back to our room, it seemed
too late for a nap (It was close to 3:15 and we planned to leave to walk over
to dinner around 4.) So…we thought, hey why not just skip nap and as soon as we
get back from dinner we will give her a bath and put her to bed early, since we
have to get up EARLY for our US Consulate appointment…BIG MISTAKE…Seriously,
you would think I had never been mom to a 2 year old before! So, we played with
Sarah, and around 4 got ready for dinner, walked over to the Metropolitan Plaza
Guangzhou (modern mall) which is less than a 10 minute walk and when we went to
get Sarah out of the stroller to go up the escalator, she was sound asleep. And
I mean SOUND asleep. We went up to the Cantonese restaurant. She slept on me
and when our meal came I was able to set her on the booth seat and she slept
through the entire meal. Rupert and I had a great meal. (We plan to go back tomorrow night!) Sarah
woke up just as the meal was ending. She was disoriented and crying. I walked
out of the restaurant with her, and walked around out in the mall, while
waiting for Rupert to pay the bill and grab our stuff. I attracted a lot of
attention of course. I am sure people were thinking, Look at that American lady with the screaming Chinese kid…and I’m
sure they were thinking lots of other things too…Luckily Sarah calmed down,
Rupert came out, and away we went. Only problem was Sarah missed dinner. So, we
walked back to our hotel, and Rupert went out to get her take-out. She DEVOURED
the largest bowl of rice and BBQ pork. She ate about 4 times the amount Aaron and
Donovan would eat of any food. This girl has quite an appetite!
Tonight she has been playing SO silly and talking so
much. She is SO musical. She makes music with all her toys. She’s been using
two magic wands as drumsticks.
Tomorrow we will be up early (but not AS EARLY as
Wednesday when we need to leave our hotel at 5:45) to head to the US Embassy
for an 8:30 Consulate Appointment.
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