Goodbye Nanchang

Tuesday night we had what seems to be our last good Chinese meal with XiXi, Bob and Liza (babies in tow of course!) During the meal Bob got the call that his new baby boy had been born, which made the meal even more memorable! We went back to the room to try to start cramming all our things back into bags -- what a mess -- we will certainly be buying a suitcase at our next stop.

Wednesday we had to say goodbye to Mary -- Harrah's guides are something else. Many other agencies don't schedule activities like they do so the families seemed to wander a bit. I chose Harrah's because of their travel reputation and I haven't been disappointed. Our guides keep telling us that we are also traveling with an adventurous and active group, which helps, too.



We flew to Guangzhou and have made it to the White Swan hotel. I didn't realize it at the time, but we pretty much were leaving China when we flew from Nanchang. This is very pretty island and has an interesting history, but the food is now Cantonese and the other choices pale in comparison to what we had in Nanchang. Gone are the bikes and interesting local shops. This hotel is much like the hotel in Hong Kong (although the Pennisula is still on another level) and all the shops in our area cater to tourists. It is fun to shop, but I am so glad XiXi helped us have the experience of vising a calligrapher to have a poem that may be important to Lyvi painted. She said it was just like something a local person would hang in their house, instead of the touristy things like children's names.

I wasn't ready to leave Nanchang, but this I can leave so finally I we are winding down and looking to the West!