Headin' south

Tomorrow we hop on another China Southern flight to go to Guangzhou, our last major stop on this little adventure. We'll be there for a week. We go there because that's where the US has decided to keep their embassy. I'm sure there's a long story behind that decision, but I don't know it, and if you get right down to it I don't really care. (Man, I gotta stop writing these things right before bed.)

After the 2 days of punishing paperwork in a smoky 6th floor conference room (seriously, on a clear day the visibility is only about a quarter mile. Have you checked out the Shenyang scenery pictures? That ain't fog), the boys were about ready to jump out of their skin. So yesterday our guide Maggie took us to a local Shenyang amusement park. It was pretty dingy and run-down, like something out of Scooby Doo ("Let's find out who this ghost really is! Why, it's Old Man Murray, who runs the old amusement park on the edge of town!" "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"), but it had this crazy indoor playground that the kids just adored. We spent 3 hours in there. It was a bunch of playground equipment stretched across 3 floors, with ladders, stairs, and slides connecting them all. Two trampolines, swings, and a ball pit. It was creaky, and I would have liked to see a safety inspection certificate, but it was just what the doctor ordered. The boys just had a blast in there.

That afternoon, Rebekah and Jed went to the local children's hospital to get an official reading on Jed's oxygen saturation level, which is something we needed to know to find out if he could fly without supplementary oxygen. It was good enough to fly to Guangzhou on, and there we'll confer with the pediatrician who's traveling in our group about the rest of the journey. The test ended up costing 11 yuan, or about 2 bucks. Not bad.

Today was a free day, with nothing official planned. So we took a taxi to the Shenyang Botanical Garden, which is a ridiculously beautiful fun place. Definitely a must-see for anyone traveling to Liaoning province. I really don't know how to describe it. Lots of small gardens with brooks and pagodas, lots of public artwork, a 2o0-foot observation tower shaped like a giant lily, oh and a really nice theme park. The theme park included something they called an "amusement bridge area", which is probably the best way to describe it. Take a river, and then come up with as many absurd and challenging ways to cross that river as you can think of, and then throw them all into the river. There were rope bridges, a line of rotating barrels, a zip line, a bunch of Tarzan-style ropes to swing across on, a giant hamster ball, etc. It was truly awesome, and if I were there without any kids, I would stay there all day. Gus was really disappointed he wasn't allowed to do much.

We got Jed's Chinese passport tonight, so we're all set to go. More to come from southern China, so stay tuned.