(cont'd)
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak
to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
At the airport, almost all our group's luggage was now overweight. (We had all been shopping in Nanchang and had porcelain and other treasures with us. Plus, we had all accumulated more baby stuff.) Shirley arranged for us to split the the overweight fines amongst us-- about 100 yuan each. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed. We ended up hanging out at the airport for about three hours longer than we'd originally expected. We were okay, ecause I'd packed something for us to eat, but the other families were very hungry. There was no restaurant in the airport and nowhere to get even a semblance of a meal. We took turns wheeling Faith up and down the corridors in her Piggyback Stroller and then she'd sleep on Auntie Corinne's chest. She was an excellent traveller for the whole trip. Finally, we were able to board the plane. Unfortunately, the seats for the flight to Beijing were not arranged by family, so many of us were seated separately from our spouses and/or other travelling companions. Some people ignored their designated seat and simply plopped themselves down in other people's seats, which then inconvenienced the original owner, who may have been placed by his/her spouse or companions. It kind of ticked me off, because although I didn't like sitting apart from Rob and Corinne, I wasn't going to make an issue of it. I ended up not having a decent seat at first, because somebody else took the seat I was assigned. Luckily, I ended up sitting next to a very nice couple, Tracy, Terry and their daughter Marin and had a good time watching Marin play with a water glass during the flight. Faith was with me originally, but she was so hot and so squirmy waiting for the plane to take off, I handed her over to Rob as soon as the seatbelt sign went off. She settled down right away and spent the rest of the flight sleeping and taking sips of water from a cup as the plane descended. Fortunately, she had no difficulties with her ears and was an excellent traveller.
The airport at Beijing, like the others on our trip, was modern and easy to navigate. We found luggage carts easily and transporting our bags was not a problem. When it came time to go through the last checkpoints, I could see Yulin, her Panda flag in hand, waiting on the other side. The woman at the kiosk wanted something from me-- some document I suppose. I offered her my passport and whatever other papers I had for Faith, but she kept shaking her head. Finally, Yulin came over and spoke to her and she let us and all the rest of our travel group through. I never did find out what I was missing, or what she needed, but I thanked God Yulin was there to straighten things out. It's disconcerting not to speak the language and to have no idea of what the person in charge wants from you. That's one reason why I'd never have done this trip with another agency. The fact that Yulin travels with all her groups and can handle every situation that comes up, is a huge asset. It was quite late when we arrived in Beijing and we were all exhausted. We couldn't wait to get to our hotel, which was, thankfully, amazingly beautiful.
The hotel-- The State Guest House-- was totally luxurious! It had a huge marble foyer, a scenic inside elevator and a lounge and restaurant right on the first floor. Our room had beautiful black laquered cabinets with inlaid designs and a small dining area. We had two double beds with a low crib, which we put between the beds and in which Faith was content to sleep. The TV had many English channels and it was wonderful to watch movies and reruns of TV shows. The bathroom had a shower separate from the bathtub and was very modern. All the employees at the front desk spoke English and it was easy to arrange room service, exchange American dollars for yuan and borrow an adapter to recharge our video camera's battery. (The one we had with us didn't work.) The State House was a five-star hotel and its water met international standards. We were still careful, however. I didn't want to take any chances. We were still drinking and brushing our teeth with bottled water only. I maybe wasn't as careful in the shower, though, and that may have been what caused me problems during our last two days in Beijing, but it could just as well have been the change in diet, or a simple bug that I picked up. Our luggage was very late getting to our rooms-- I'm not sure why that happened. Apparently it was downstairs in the hotel lobby for several hours, before it was brought up to our rooms after midnight. (As conscientious as Yulin is, she may have been down there guarding it-- who knows?) Again, it didn't inconvenience us very much. My carry-on bag still had all the essentials in it we needed to get ready for bed, including diapers and formula for Faith and toothbrushes and toothpaste for Rob and I. We stripped down to our underwear and teeshirts and went to bed in those, after washing and jellyrolling the rest of what we were wearing. That way, we'd be able to get dressed in the morning, even if our luggage somehow didn't arrive. We were exhaused and we knew we'd have an early start in the morning to get to the medicals-- one more hurdle to cross, in order to bring Faith home to Canada.
