January 14th last day in Guangzhou

We slept in today if you call 8 am sleeping in. After breakfast we walked around to a few shops to say good bye to vendors and to purchase 1 more suit case to hold all the stuff we purchased. It was sad saying bye to people we have been getting to know. Judy and Jenny have a special place in our heart. We enjoyed bargaining with Jack and Lilly and with others that we don’t know their names.

We bumped into some new friends including Karen and her daughters. We were sad that we did not get to see Laura before we left for home. We headed to Subway for a quick lunch to hold us over since we were not sure about dinner in Hong Kong. After lunch it was time to have our bags picked up and check out of the hotel.

Grace had everything in order for our departure. She had a van waiting to take us to the consulate to get Maria’s visa. When we got there a man met us and took us to the train station while Grace was getting the passport / visa. When we arrived at the train station a porter met us at the curb to take all our bags in. We got to security and once the bags were scanned the other guy loaded them up for us and they were ready to go. It was about $60 US for the porters and the cost of checking the bags on the train but well worth it to not have to deal with them our self.

The train was very nice and we had an enjoyable ride. Going to Hong Kong is just like another country, you go through immigration, boarder patrol etc. The girls made friends with a couple of the train attendants so we had plenty of attention. When we arrived at the Hong Kong station about 2 hours later we made our way through security and a porter met us with our bags. We were glad to see that they had luggage carts available. Robin was worried about the fact that we would have to use 2 taxi’s to get all our bags to the hotel. We started our way toward the taxi stand and as we walked a man came up and said “large family with many bags, you need large car” I asked his price and he said $450 HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) which was better than 2 cabs. He seemed nice and we thought a van would be nice. He helped us get the carts across the street to a loading area and told us to wait. We saw a van pull up and load others and then a gold Mercedes Limo pulls up with our guy behind the wheel. He starts loading up our bags, the trunk is full and bungee cords hold the trunk lid down on bags. He was very nice and gave us his business card in case we are ever back in Hong Kong.

The hotel (Novotel) was great. It was so nice, beautifully furnished and with soft beds. We had to get 2 rooms due to the number of people but it was so nice to have a large bed to ourselves.

While mom bathed the girls, dad went over to the mall to pick up some dinner. McDonalds was the safe bet for cheap and fast as we needed to get some sleep. The girls scarffed the chicken nuggets and we enjoyed the Big Mac’s.

It was about 10 before we got the girls to bed and we knew that 4 am would come soon. We are heading home.