Today we took the bus to the Airport around noon. We were able to purchase authentic Beijing Olympic stuff there. Of course everyone in our group bought the pack of little "mascots" they are using called "friendlies". They look like little stuffed animals in the 5 colors of the Olympic circles.
The plane looked much nicer than any we've taken, even those in the US. There was a TV screen built in to the back of the seat in front of you...for each seat. The seats were about 1/3 larger than our other planes. But looks can be DECEIVING! The plane was SOOOO HOT. After we took off it seemed as if they just turned off the air completely. I think I was having hot flashes....really. Either I'm entering menopause a tad early - or that plane had massive heat waves! It made me queasy being so hot. And it was a 3 hour flight! And to top it off - the seat bottoms were angled up to where it cut off your circulation. My legs were KILLING me on the flight. Going numb, cramping up....they kept the seat belt light on b/c we were experiencing turbulence and asked people to stay in their seats, but I pretended I needed to go to the restroom - just so I could stand up and walk. It was that bad!
The landing was GREAT. Nothing like the Beijing landing that made the whole plane hurl. So this was definitely a positive! We took a 30 minute bus ride to our hotel - and I am still having a hard time assessing the EXTREME differences between Beijing and Guangzhou. The difference is unbelievable! Everywhere we drove in Beijing there were 30 story apartment buildings with a window and air unit for each apartment. Beijing was dirty, under construction, ...Guangzhou looks like a business and commerce area, lots of bright lights, nice buildings, ...but the apartments we passed looked more run down. Each apartment had a walk out balcony and it didn't appear they had air conditioning. It looked like people washed out their clothes and hung them on their balcony to dry. You could see through the doors and windows and see the people inside. There were many highways intersecting with lots of traffic....kinda like in Dallas where a lot of highways have ramps above other highways for several miles. That is how we could see in every one's apartment - b/c our highway was up high on their level. Kind of like being in Chicago riding the L and looking in people's apartments. My mom said some buildings she saw looked like they had one floor that was a factory where people were working and the rest of the building looked like apartments. The apartment areas are the only areas we have seen in Guangzhou that look run down compared to Beijing.
OUR HOTEL here is MORE than awesome. This is probably the BIGGEST contrast. We now have AIR CONDITIONING! WHOOOOO HHOOOOO!
Gotta go, will finish this later. We are leaving now to go and get our babies! Here we come baby Mia! :) So you may not get a post from me again until "tomorrow" our time. We are focusing on bonding tonight! Just know when you here nothing on the blog - that it is b/c we are with our precious baby girl! ;)
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