The Booze Cruise, Chinese Style

Okay, for all you non-Office fans out there who have no idea of what the Booze Cruise is. It is an episode where the entire staff takes a boat cruise around the lake with copious amounts of booze. Well, we did something of the same, except our drink offerings of chioce were Pepsi, 7-Up, or orange soda. The cruise was actually a dinner cruise on the Pearl River, which runs through the city of Guangzhou. Our cruise lasted from 6:30 until 8:00 and I have to admit it was the most relaxing thing we have done on this entire trip. Rob and I skipped the dinner (we had Subway in the afternoon instead!), but Kendall really dug into the rice, noodles, and beans. This kid loves her noodles! The timing of the cruise was perfect...the sun was setting and all the buildings around the river were beginning to light up as we were cruising. Very cool. The lower level of the boat was actually air-conditioned, but after the dinner we went up on the upper deck to enjoy the open air and lights. Kendall enjoyed watching all the other dinner cruise boats pass us along the way. Earlier in the day the three of us ventured off the island to the big city to check out the traditional medicine market. Interesting to say the least. We saw dried seahorses, starfish, snakes, all kinds of mushrooms, and god only knows what else. Kendall started the whine, so we only stayed for a few minutes before we wlaked back (plus it was about 90 million degrees outside). On the way back we had to cross a pedestrian bridge over the road where we were entertained by a one-legged karoke beggar. Yep, he was singing (with an amp, microphone and all) for money. Everytime someone would give him some money he would say thank you in Chinese into the mic, which had this terrible echo. Rob, being the nice guy, decided to make a donation to his cause. When we got back to the hotel we decided to take Kendall swimming. I think she would love the pool, but for some reason has developed a fear of Chinese people working at our hotel, including the pool attendants. She took one look at the woman and screamed bloody murder, so her and I headed back to our room for a nap, only to be greeted by a cleaning person and the screaming started all over again. While she and I napped, Rob went back to the medicine market becasue he wanted to see the scorpions. He came back happy because he got to see both little and big scorpions. Lucky him...I'm sorry I missed it. Today was a quiet day. It started out with breakfast where we saw this giant bug (a roach I think...) near our table, laying on its back still kicking its legs. No one seemed to notice it (but I certainly did) until one worker saw it, and a crowd of three workerd gathered around it. One wanted to step on it, but was held back by the lady in charge, so they took the broom and simply swept it up. Goodbye and good riddance. One of the adults had to stay in the room today from 10:30 until 12:00 because it was the day that Grace, our guide, took our paperwork to the US Consulate to apply for Kendall's visa. She called us around 11:40 to tell us that everything was good. YES! This means we are cleared to bring Kendall home on Friday!!!!! We tried swimming after that but had the same reaction as yesterday so her and I took another nap while Rob swam for a while. When he came back I went and did some shopping with the help of Rose, another mother and champion bargainer in our group. I got some really good deals with her help. We went to Lucy's again for dinner and came back to the room. I started packing the suitcases this morning when I was stuck in the room. Miss Kendall was particularly difficult to put to sleep tonight, but after 40 minutes of her laughing at me she finally went to sleep. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo, where we will probably melt, but Kendall likes animals, and then we take the oath at the US Consulate in the afternoon. Only 2 more sleeps here in China before we come home!