Little Guy's Big Day

Today was the little guy’s birthday. He turned four in America and the rest of the Western world. He already turned four here in China at the Chinese New Year - that's the tradition over here, everyone gets a year older on the same day. He had birthday cake for the first time as well as his second ice cream cone ever. It was a very eventful and exhausting day.

We started out with a marathon shopping expedition to the jade and pearl market. Let me just say that spending hours in a 6 story mall with no air conditioning waiting for every woman in our group to finish shopping was hell. At one point a mom asked me if that was sweat on my shirt or if I had dumped a water bottle over my head to cool off. It was sweat, by the way. Trying to keep a rambunctious 4 year old busy for all those hours was double hell. We went up and down the escalator at least sixty times; up one side, down the other. Hold on to the rail, watch your step. Over and over again.

Next we went to the DVD store to buy educational videos and other stuff. Got a decent copy of Kung Fu Panda for about $2 – these were supposed to be the legitimate DVD’s and not the bootleg copies that you can buy in every 7-11 across the land. We’ll see.

We did lunch back at the hotel and then went for a walk in the park near our hotel. We aren't staying on Shamain Island like so many other travel groups have. Instead we are located in downtown Guangzhou, across the street from the city park. It’s kind of like Central Park in NYC but bigger and hillier. It has all kinds of paths and statues and stairs and stairs and stairs. We saturated another pair of clothes just getting there and gave ourselves dehydration headaches on the way back. Tyson was so tired that he could barely pick up his feet and actually let Melissa carry him. He never does that.

We got Tyson to settle down for a nap while we ran around and got together his birthday party. Our guides had already asked the hotel to make Ty a cake. We blew up balloons and brought in dinner and sang happy birthday about eight times. He really got excited for the cake with the candles and we blew them out twice. He had three pieces of cake and we were worried about him vomiting from all his overeating. I don't think the kids ever had cake before and all that sugar made getting him to sleep a bit harder - but he's out like a light right now - thank God.

At this point we are in a holding pattern – waiting for our paperwork to clear and for the consulate appointment this Thursday afternoon – then we are outta here. Definitely getting tired of hotel food and being confined to a hotel room most of the day. The hotel is lavish and in a great part of town but it’s just not home. And having to run down to Starbucks every night just to get internet connectivity is getting really old. We are in the home stretch now and we’ll be fine – but the clothes are getting dirty, we’re running out of underwear and we’re ready for that 13 hour flight back to Detroit.

Melissa and Mom send their love and Ty would to if he knew what we were talking about. Happy Labor Day Everyone!