We made it!

May 1 – the lost day
I learned another hard lesson – not all airports have wireless. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my Ethernet cord, so I have to buy one asap…or borrow the Thomas’! I met them in the terminal while waiting for Susan to arrive and we all had dinner together and are seated in the same row. They are so nice, and very funny. We are already having a great time. China Southern Premium Economy class is luxurious. Our seats are wide with plenty of legroom. They kept bringing us stuff at the beginning…a hot towel to wash our hands (made me crave sushi), a huge newspaper, a little bag of toiletries, slippers….it was really cool. About an hour or so after we were on our way, I popped an Ambien and settled in…and then they brought dinner! Oops! It was delicious, but Susan said I fell asleep eating a strawberry. How embarrassing! I woke up about 8 hours later and they fed me breakfast- my first congee. It was good, in a savory rather than a sweet way, but still delicious. I read “A Pavillion of Women” in its entirety and plan to leave it on the plane here-great book. We have about an hour til we land and it will be 6:30am there. We then fly to Beijing and start touring up a storm! It will be a long day. I know that at about 3pm I will crash but right now it feels perfectly natural that it is morning.
As soon as I can find an Ethernet cord in Beijing, I will update the website. So far, we are well taken care of and quite cheerful!

May 2 (on blog)
Susan: We had some dinner and boarded out flight to Guangshou in
Business Class. Woo-hoo, that was very nice!! Slippers, toiletry kit, and
food served on china dishes. We settled in and I decided to skip
dinner and have a scotch with my lunesta instead. I looked over at Ellen as
she was finishing up her dinner and noticed she had a roll in her right
hand and a strawberry in her left and her strawberry was trying to make
it to her mouth, hers eyes were closed and she bumped the stawberry
into her lips and WOKE HERSELF UP!!!! Too funny--like a little kid!! We
had a good laugh and went to sleep. Thankfully we woke up about 7
hours later--pretty nice! Eventually we landed in Guangshou waited for our
plane by having some breaky--both Ellen and I ordered iced coffees, sat
down took a big swig and realized that we had ice in our drinks and
didn't finish the rest. No travelers sickness for us!

May 2 –evening
We’ve just returned from the most HEAVENLY massage experience. The language barrier was huge and we ended up canning the spa idea and just paying for our massages. Mine was incredible. Never had one quite that good before-even though it was a fully clothed one (Susan’s wasn’t-she had a womanl and I had a man-I wonder if it’s a decency thing? Anyway, in spite of clothes, it rocked. My neck REALLY hurts and he did a great job. It still hurts now…but while he was working on it, it felt soooo good. We both had a strange shower/bath experience (language issue but weird all the same…) We are about to head out to dinner after we each hop in the shower. I am really exhausted-I feel like I’ve adjusted already to the time change (it’s 6:30 here and I feel like having dinner and then going to bed are the logical order of things) but I bet I’ll wake up at the crack of dawn. We are to report to the lobby, fed, at 8:30am for our tour. The weather is humid but cool-ahhh. The bus rides to and from our last leg were so surreal. Not only were we crammed on there like sardines, but there was no AC and lots of body odor. Whew! Outside our hotel window is a huge street with a parking lot on one side for about 200 bikes, a subway line, and about 5 rickshaws. What an interesting blend of the old and the new.

Now it is early May 3 am (6am our time) and we woke refreshed and a bit sore from our massages. I’m doing some emails and then we’ll shower and head down to breakfast and off to our tour of the day. I’ll be sure to post pics this afternoon. Last night was a hoot- we lost all power in our room for a while.