Tuesday, November 06, 2012

thurs: boating in the park, train to hong kong

so, thursday tuned out to not be the most peaceful of days from a sibling-rivalry standpoint. cure? boating on the lake in the chinese park, of course!

first, after the "so let's look at the evidence behind the 'this has ruined my life' claim" chat (which we had on a planter outside a guangzhou subway station, and which our prima dona soon admitted was just her "being dramatic"), we tried a paddle boat, in an effort to get out some of that negative energy. unfortunately, xia, who needed it most, couldn't really reach the pedals. so i wound up pedaling the four of us around myself (i needed the exercise).


and since she was frustrated that she couldn't power the boat, xia begged us to take one of the ELECTRIC boats out, so she could pilot. we had some time to kill. sooooo.... well, suffice to say xia enjoyed it far more than fuxi did.



and then some posing in front of the giant red lantern at the park's entrance....



and then, we packed up, checked out of the marriott (where this day of the dead display was as close to halloween as we got) and headed to the train station, where we did some chinese homework with the help of maggie, one of our guides, and then dealt with a very squirmy and unhappy fuxi on the two-hour trip to hong kong. 







fuxi SCREAMED at length on the train, which was pleasant for everyone, and really made us look forward to the 12-hour flight home. the good news was that i had hotwired us a room at the intercontinental grand stanford in kowloon, and jeff cracked upon check-in and upgraded us to a suite -- so the kids had their own room. things were suddenly a lot brighter! kowloon was hopping... dinner at a great italian restaurant where a guitarist played songs like "baby, if i live without you, i live without loooooooooooooooooooooove...." i needed that glass of chianti.

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