Day 6 – Gotcha Day

On the airplane to Guangzhou now. Staring at the new pictures of Madeline and re-reading the instruction manual they gave us at the orientation meeting. I can not wait to meet her. Hope she feels the same. I am a little tired as I did not sleep very well last night. Kept waking up thinking about playing golf…nice easy swing, visualizing making good contact and hitting the ball straight down the fairway. Playing softball… getting in front of the ball, watching the ball into my glove, quickly coming up to make the throw. Oh now basketball…replaying a rec game I played 5 years ago. Go up strong for a 3-point shot, follow through, swish. All these thoughts no wonder it was a restless night.

We packed all but the essentials before sleep and we were up, showered, completely packed, and in the lobby by 5:30. Check out was fast as we paid our hotel bills the night before. Meet up with our escort in the hotel lobby and off to the airport where she checked us in for our flight. No problems. It is like she has done this before. She was our group tour guide yesterday and it was nice to have one on one time with her. Crystal found out her husband is a Chinese medicine doctor and we had a pleasant informative conversation on the way to the airport. We have been very lucky. No traffic problems to speak of and most of our tours have been with groups of three, just us and the tour guide. This allowed us to go at our own pace, ask questions, and get to know our guides.

Staring at the pictures of Madeline. The airport terminal we departed from was different from the one we arrived at. This one is brand new, beautiful, and huge. The terminal itself appears to be a large dragon and a parking garage looks like a turtle. Our escort led us to the security gate and we were off. Our flight was still a couple of hours away at 8:30. A cup of coffee, another look at the instruction manual, and walking around looking at all the stores passed the time. We arrive in Guangzhou around 11:50. - Jim