Mood:
happyLet's start with the characters going on this trip. Me, the ABC that will be in China. ABC stands for American Born Chinese and my initials are also ABC. My mom, born and raised in Guangzhou, she was in her teens when she came to the states. ABC #2 is Izz, her extremely limited chinese includes a hodge podge of Cantonese words that she learned in Chinese School. ABC #3 is Chubba, his chinese is even more limited than Izz's (if that is possible), he knows how to say milk, rice, chicken and that is about it.
I was driving in the car with my mom one day and she suggested a trip to China. The kids, readily agreed to a trip to China, specifically to see the Great Wall of China, which was shown on a recent episode of Ni Hao Kai Lan (a children's show for those who do not have young children, think Dora, but Chinese). According to Chubba, he wants to go to the Great Wall to say Ni Hao to the people.
So, after checking plane ticket prices, we found cheap tickets from Newark direct to Hong Kong. The flight will take us under 16 hours each way, which is much better than the 24 hours it took me the last time I went to HK/China in 2000/2001.
After some discussion, we decided to head to Hong Kong on September 6, returning on September 24. Due to the time difference and the International Date Line, we will actually arrive in Hong Kong the evening of September 7 and get back only 4 hours after we take off on the 24th.
We will spend one night in Hong Kong, then head into China, specifically Guangzhou (aka Canton). After five nights in Guangzhou, we will fly to Xi'an (home of the Terra Cotta Warriors) for two nights and Beijing for three nights before heading back Guangzhou for two more nights and wrapping up with four nights in Hong Kong. I am using nights instead of days because with the train and plane rides, we will spend a bunch of half days in various places.
My next blog will probably be next Monday, when I take our passports to the Chinese Embassy to get Visas.