We leave next Tuesday for a three week vacation in China. Unlike our two prior trips, we plan to come home with exactly as many children as we had when we started (darn!). We're going to Hong Kong, Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, Wuzhen, Suzhou, Shanghai, Guilin, and Qinzhou. In addition to the usual touristy stuff, we'll visit blogger friends in Shanghai and Maddy's foster family in Qinzhou.
We'll post to this blog while we're away (not the password blog).
Packing has turned into my latest obsession. Regardless of how many heavy suitcases we're allowed for the international flight, we only get one 44 pound suitcase per person for the rest of our travel in China. I've been trying to make the most out of each and every pound!
When you toss in the essential stuff like Pull-ups (we need 100 of them!), computers and electronics, DVD's, camera, toiletries, and a small assortment of toys, it quickly becomes obvious that there's not much room for clothes. Since laundering an item typically costs at least as much as the original purchase price of the item, I'm trying to pack only things that can easily be washed in the hotel bathroom sink and hanged in the shower to dry overnight. Obviously, nothing with full cotton content is allowed within 10 feet of any of our suitcases. I'm also restricting myself and the girls to one color scheme of clothing so everything matches everything else and we don't need more than two pairs of shoes each. Ha! Well see how that goes!
We're taking the car seats that we purchased during our 2006 China trip. This is probably the last time we'll be able to use them but they've been worth their weight in gold since we've used them on many flights and the girls sleep so blissfully in them. We can't use them on any of the China Southern flights inside China so we're crossing our fingers that we can leave them at our Hong Kong hotel for the duration of our trip and retrieve them on the day before we fly home (we're staying at the same hotel on the first and last days of our trip). I've been afraid to seek permission in advance to do this since I don't want to hear a "no" answer. Instead, I'll wait until I'm there and my two pretty little girls are standing next to me and we'll all bat our eyelashes in unison and hope the hotel will agree to hold the car seats for 2.5 weeks. If they won't, we'll ditch them. That's life.
Okay, back to packing! :)
Have a great time! I can't wait to hear about your trip.
Posted by: Jamie | April 15, 2008 at 09:12 PM
Hey, have a good trip!
You'll love Xian. It's the most amazing thing I've seen. But also there was a stressful thing: during the tour in the big hall with terracotta soldiers (with mum, dad, grandma and 3 boys), we lost our youngest son (he had just turned 4 at the time)! All the adults thought that he was with one of the other adults, but in the end none of us had him with them. Fortunately there was no way he could have gone out of the (huge) room, but since it was packed with tourists it took us a lot of time before we had found him (we backtracked in the opposite direction).
In the end we found him, surrounded by nice Chinese people, sitting quietly (not crying), but looking so sad that my heart still breaks...! You know, he was always a major attraction to everyone (small cute blonde kid), and always people tried to be nice to him and get him to be on photographs with them etcetera... and in one of the occasions he had probably gone with a Chinese family instead of further with us.
Afterwards I asked him how he was and what he thought, and he said: "I couldn't see you, but I was sure you would come back for me, but it was a very long time", and my heart broke again....!
Well, so far Xian (it's still the first thing that comes back into my mind, remembering that).
Oh, and another thing... I just remembered that 12 of the most famous Xian statues are... right here in the Netherlands! So if you want to see *them*, you'll have to pop by and visit us here. I don't object!
Have a wonderful holiday,
Sjoukje
Posted by: Sjoukje | April 18, 2008 at 03:17 AM
Oh, I hope you trip is beautiful, fun, and very special!
Can't wait to see pics!!!
Posted by: Shana | April 26, 2008 at 10:20 AM