(I wrote this post in the Hong Kong airport, but it disappeared.) We finally made our way to the Guangzhou airport with our guide Susan. We had a 10:30 pm flight, and she had an 8 pm flight back to Beijing. We could not check in until 3 hours before our flight, so we waited for her to check in. After Susan checking in, she just happened to ask if Lawrence - the agency travel agent - booked our tickets for this flight. WHAT?? We soon discovered that we had NO SEATS on this flight or any other to Hong Kong! I've been stressing so much over catching our connecting flight to Dallas out of San Francisco that I never dreamed we'd have another glitch. I started trying to figure out our options if there were no more seats available for this flight. After about 45 very tense minutes and about 50 new gray hairs, we had tickets in our hands! Unlike the US where it would have cost us a mint to buy tickets just a few hours ahead of time, China is highly regulated. It only cost about $630! I sure am glad we took extra cash!!
Well, it came time to check in, and we were all in 4 different lines. All of a sudden they decide to create 1 NEW line. It was so hot, SYdney was crying because she was miserable and exhausted, and Evan was crying because her stomach was hurting so badly. Sydney finally fell asleep in the stroller and didn't wake up until we boarded at 10:30 pm. Evan took a Pepto and eventually felt much better. Our next stops were very hot and humid security and then immigration checkpoints. An hour and a half later, we made it to our gate with 2 Yuan short to buy anything to drink (that would be about 30 cents). We were NOT exchanging anymore money, though.
We landed in Hong Kong around midnight, and by 2 AM we were eating club sandwiches from room service. A 6:30 AM wake-up call, omelets from room service, and a very full hotel shuttle later, we were ready for our 12 1/2 flight back to the US!!
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