The End of the Line

Well, the end of the trip anyway. Our life with Ella is just beginning (as is her life with us). We took the bus from Guangzhou to Hong Kong yesterday. Our guide suggested that it might be more convenient to take the bus than the train because the bus went straight to the airport and we wouldn't have to deal with our luggage going through the subway or paying exhorbitant fees to a taxi. So it seemed like a great idea, except that tomorrow is China National Day, which is like July 4th x 1000, so traffic was horrid. We had to get ourselves and all our baggage off the bus to go through customs to get out of China. Ella's departure card was supposed to be filled out in Chinese, but since neither she nor I write Chinese, we got in line with a kind female customs officer who wrote out Ella's card for her (sometimes it pays to have a cute, drowsy baby strapped to your chest). Then we got back on the bus, drove for five minutes, and then had to unload everything again to go through customs to get into Hong Kong. All in all, we were on the bus for about five and a half hours with a tired, damp, hungry baby and two tired, hungry adults. It was a long and trying day. We did manage to make it through the day without killing each other or anyone else, so we've got that going for us.

We fly home tomorrow. We'll probably do some sightseeing today and a lot of just sleeping and relaxing. It'll be nice not to live out of a suitcase. I'll keep trying to put up pictures of Ella as she grows, since so many friends live out of town. Thanks for sharing in our journey.