…anther layer of skin.
My face keeps pealing, but it is feeling better.
I just look really gross. (As was pointed out to me today by 4 differnt people.)
TRAVEL DAY
Yesterday we flew for the first time will all the babies.
It was a really good day. Everyone had lots of energy. I think that is because it was the first time in a few days that the families really felt like they were doing something. Not just waiting for paper work.
The progress was obvious. All the moms and dads were energized by this. Home is getting that much closer.
I was asked to carry all the important travel documents by our guide to the next stop. And it wasn’t like I just happened to be standing next to Marie before we headed through security. She sought me out and asked if I would carry them on.
One of the fathers thought it was interesting that the person who had the least stake in all of this was trusted with the consulate documents.
I resisted the temptation to hold the documents hostage for a ransom.
The travel was painless enough. A little delay because of rain.
They made a choice on the plane, I don’t I would have made. They handed out newspapers in English with the latest news and pictures of KY.
By the time luggage arrived (11pm) everyone was spent from the excitement and the travel.
HOTEL
The hotel is very nice. It is a 5 star hotel by China standards, (which would be a 4 or 4 1/2 in Europe). It is the nicest of the three hotels we have stayed in.
Each floor has an attendant who hits the elevator call button for you, and greets you when you exit the elevator.
The staff (like everywhere we have been in China) is very nice, and they speak more English than Chongqing.
At dinner last night I even received a great recommendation from my waitress (and it was one of the cheapest things on the menu), which was awesome.
Normally when I use the description I am about to use, I would mean it in pejorative way. That is not the case now, but it the best and maybe only way I feel in the new hotel.
I feel like I am at a Disney Resort.
For the last week, we have been really the only international tourists anywhere. Communication has been hard, if not impossible. It was very obvious we were in a very different place than our own. That is not to say we weren’t welcome, but it was just foreign.
Here, most of the hotel guests are American, British, or Australian. There are 88 families at the hotel just from the agency that Brad and Joia are using. Families everywhere.
Which is very cool.
There are lots of “theme” restaurants in the hotel, from different parts of the world. All of the staff at each place are in appropriate costumes.
The atrium of the hotel has a large waterfall and faux Chinese building.
The only time I have ever been in a hotel with such a friendly and attentive staff is in a Disney hotel.
One of the two swimming pools is an odd squiggly shape.
It almost feels like we are in the Chinese part of Epcot.
Not that any of that is bad. The part of the city we are in use to be a British protectorate. Many of the people in our hotel are international business professionals. (The conversation going on at the table next to me at breakfast was amazing.) It is just very different.
It is almost culture shock; very similar to what I feel when I get home from foreign travel.
I needed to go for a walk this morning, into the market, where I encounter two double size sheet covered with scorpions drying in the sun, to feel at home.
BUT very different.

Posted in China | Comments Off