Jet Lag in Guangzhou

My sweet son, Dylan, called me today. I'm sure he didn't give it another thought since it was 3pm his time but my cell rang at four this morning jolting me out of a REALLY good dream. It's been a strange deal so far because I'm sleeping like I used to in university...you know, BC...before children.

My kids both think that it is absolutely astounding that it can be Friday for me and Thursday for them. They liken it to some sort of sci-fi time traveler thing and thus, every conversation opens with the same dialogue:

"Hi Mama. What day is it over there?"

Before taking this trip, I went to Sam's and invested in some new luggage. I am extremely hard on my suitcases and I usually have to replace them once a year so when I saw "10 year guarantee" written all over the packaging, I chose Ricardo of Beverly Hills instead of Samsonite. The stuff didn't even make it one leg of the trip. The handle on the large suitcase is defective so that if I want to stow it, I have to unzip the case, reach in and feel around for the magic nodule. I press this and the handle goes down. Then to get it back up, I must unzip again, reach further down and depress yet another enchanted button. Let me tell you how much fun this was today as I hauled my luggage around an impossibly crowded train station. Besides the fact that my feminine protection leapt out of the bag every time I had to make an adjustment, the embarrassment factor was topped only by my panties who apparently wanted in on the action and made an appearance or two, as well.

We made it into Guangzhou around ten in the morning. After checking into the hotel, we grabbed a quick bite and then spent the next six hours at the fair going from booth to booth. It was a productive day and we'll be back at it again tomorrow morning before flying out to Beijing in the afternoon.

We're just now headed out to my favourite Chinese seafood restaurant where I will chow on lobster and politely try to avoid the sea cucumber. I can't wait to crawl into bed tonight.