The day before we left, Wednesday in China-time, we mostly chilled out. We came to breakfast later than usual, and really had no commitments. Having received Grace’s immigration papers and Chinese passport, now with the US Immigrant Visa inserted, the night before, we had pretty much no commitments except to be sure to check out of the hotel the night before and to get our bags packed for the bell boy to pick up before 8pm. It was strange to check out the night before (yes, we still slept in our rooms), and also strange to think about a packing strategy that allows you to sleep and get ready for a long day of travel.
The day was filled with shopping. One should note that when I use
phrases like “the day was filled with”, there is an implied tax of baby naps, changing, and meals levied on every day, so the amount left for “shopping” is whittled down to about 2 hours. Here’s one last picture of us all at Starbucks. Again, you’d think that all we did was crave things that were familiar or American. Well, even though we started out more adventurous, I have to admit that it’s true. Looking forward to being back home is what allowed us to power through this day and definitely the next.
Lastly, we had dinner with a few other families at a local restaurant, and said our good-byes to the ones we wouldn’t see the next day.
That packing strategy is familiar...the same thing happened on our cruise. When we got to customs (we'd spent 5 hours in Canada) we were madly scrambling to stuff well, stuff, into our bags and not get the weight wrong. We were precariously close to the 50 pound limit on all four bags. But it worked. Our heaviest bag was 49.8! Neal's dad had a portable luggage scale that you hang your bag from, so we had some idea of where to do our stuffing. It was just so disconcerting leaving our luggage in the hallway at bedtime.
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