China Update #15 - On our way to Hong Kong

(from Jay)

As I write this, it's supper time back home (6 pm) on Thursday, but here its 8 am on Friday morning. I just can't get used to that. Last night we went to the Swan Room and said our goodbyes like Camille said in our previous post. Then we started the chore of repacking for the journey home.

Here's a sneak peak of what we're in for today...at 10:45 am, we head to the huge Guangzhou train station, where we have to go through customs, check bags like an airport and find and hop on a double decker train headed for Hong Kong. I won't go into the history, but Hong Kong is still treated as something separate from China, so you have to go through customs, and technically, leave China.

This was found out the hard way by a couple down the hall the other morning. We saw them putting their luggage back into their room here at the hotel in Guangzhou. I asked what was wrong, and they found out that they were headed to Hong Kong to the airport (like us) but their flight had them connecting back in Beijing before flying to the United States...but because they only had a single entry visa to China, they needed a new visa, because upon reaching Hong Kong, they leave China...so they were having to check back in and get a new visa...man...that would stink.

I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous about the train station. So, please pray that it goes smooothly.

We'll reach Hong Kong around 2pm, and a guide is supposed to pick us up at the train station and get us to our hotel. Here's a map of the Hong Kong Regal Airport Hotel....it connects to the airport, which is on its own island...its crazy!

View Larger Map

Since we are getting into Hong Kong at 2pm instead of the originally planned 8:30pm, I really hope we can squeeze in a moment to walk around downtown and ride the star ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong (search hong kong star ferry on google maps), but we may be beat when we get there...

So keep us in your prayers as we finish up our business here in Guangzhou and manuever the train station with all of our luggage. I'm sure today will be an adventure...