Monday 2/13/2006 6:00 AM

First the technical stuff. I found a way to view postings. When you post something on the blog the information is automatically forwarded to Ann’s hotmail account and we can read your post from there. So this means Grandma no longer needs to pass that information on.

The only tense moment we had in our travels is when we had to change planes when we first arrived in Guangzhou. I asked for help trying to find our next gate. We were finally pointed in the right direction and were standing in line to check in when a lady walked up to us and asked “Where you go?” When we told her Wuhan she told us to follow her. We did and she snaked her way to a particular check in line, shooing away others who were in line ahead of us. She looked like some airline or government official. She took our tickets, checked our luggage and then walked rapidly away telling us to follow her. She headed for an elevator. I thought she was leading us to our gate but Ann said it didn’t seem right. Why would she take off so quickly and want to go down a level. I thought nothing of it until we got off and started walking to a deserted part of the airport. Ann was right, something was off, but she had our tickets and was again about ten paces ahead of us! We got to the end of the corridor when a man came down an elevator shaft at the very moment we arrived. He told us our luggage was over weight and we need to pay $200.00 dollars in fines. Now I don’t know a lot but one thing I do know Ann would never make a $200.00 dollar mistake. I asked him how much our bags weighed and he asked me if we had U.S. money. The lady still had our tickets but she was in reach and I snatched them from her hand and told Ann, who was pushing Emily in the stroller, to start moving. I had our carry-on luggage and headed for a spot where I saw people. Behind us the con artist was saying we need to pay $200.00 fine. As we got further away I heard the guy say we could pay only $100.00 fine. He caught up with us and told us to go “this way” I said no and told him I didn’t trust him. After that all he wanted to do was blend into the background so we couldn’t point him out and he left us alone. I have got to say I think the experience has put us an edge on this trip. I am not looking forward to getting into a Taxi.

We had a three hour wait in Guangzhou and then took an uneventful plane ride to Wuhan where we were met, as planned, with a shuttle from the airport to the May Flower Hotel. We checked in, unpacked, then went to the hotel restaurant to eat. The only thing Emily liked was the rice. After dinner we went for a walk. Emily says she like China because of all the stores and people on the streets. It is a pretty gritty location and doesn’t afford westerners like ourselves many opportunities to shop for our daily needs, unlike Nanjing.
We will have to take a cab to where ever we need to go, kind of scary given what happened at the airport.

Wuhan has a blue collar feel to it. We got plenty of stares from the locals as we walked with Emily. You could see they were trying to process the information their eyes were delivering to their brains. Yesterday was the last day of the two week long Chinese New Year celebration. At about 5:00 pm you could see fire works from our hotel window that lasted for about 2 hours, but the cool thing was about a half hour into those fire works another location about ½ mile away began to shoot off their fire works. Then another location, and another, and so on, at one point the entire sky was full of fireworks everywhere I looked. This went on until after 2 in the morning. It was really quite the sight. After our walk Ann crashed around 7:30, Emily was down at 9:00 and I didn’t get to sleep until about 1:30am.

It is 6:00 Monday morning as I write this. Emily and Ann are still in bed. I can’t believe how well Emily has taken to this trip. And now as I type, you won’t believe this, but more fire works are going off!

We are only about 36 hours away from meeting Sarah and holding her in our arms for the first time.