busking, the amazing race and pooping anywhere

Recently Kaidyn has decided to take up busking. I blame this on my in-laws. For some reason they felt it would be a good idea to take him to a Harley Davidson in Hong Kong and buy him a hat. Apparently it is a busking hat. Once the hat was purchased Amanda and her parents and the kids hit the subway in Hong Kong in order to go to HK Disney. While waiting for the first train Kaidyn decided to use his new purchase to make some money. He put his hat down and started to dance. Anyone who has been to Hong Kong and has used the MTR knows that it is a busy place. So, needless to say, there were plenty of potential customers. Our entrepreneurial son danced his heart out and made about thirty dollars that day. From his family. Not a single stranger put money in that Harley hat. So, the next time you see a six year old dancing his heart out in the subway, give generously. You don't want to crush a young dancer's dreams. Video coming soon.....

We were almost detained on our way home from Xi'an at the beginning of May. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. But, here's the story:

We have 6 month multi-entry visas for China. You don't need visas to go to Hong Kong or Macau (as Canadian citizens), but you do need a visa to go to China. So, we have 6 month visas in our passports and go to Zhuhai regularly. When we were planning our Easter vacation to China we heard from many people that it is way cheaper to cross the border into China in order to fly to other parts of China. It changes an International flight into a domestic flight.

So, Amanda booked our flights from Shenzhen. Shenzhen is a ferry ride away from Macau (and it connected to Hong Kong by land). You can actually take a ferry directly from Macau to the Shenzhen airport. Piece of cake. Several weeks before our departure Amanda was checking out ferry times and realized that the last ferry back from Shenzhen to Macau would be WAY after our 10 p.m. arrival time into Shenzhen from Xi'an at the end of our trip.

So, we booked a hotel in Shenzhen. We planned to arrive in Shenzhen from Xi'an at 10:30, go to our hotel for the night and then spend the following day shopping there before taking a ferry back to Macau. No problem.

But, there was a problem. We didn't realize it, but we are only allowed to stay in China for 7 days (according to our visas). Luckily we noticed this the week before we left. Our trip was to start on Saturday, April 23 and end Saturday, April 30. At first we figured that would be fine. That is a full week (7 days, right)? But, as we talked to people we started to get worried. Apparently it doesn't go by FULL 24 hour increments. It goes by the calendar days you are actually standing in their country. So, April 30th would be our 8th day in China. We had a problem.

Luckily, we had a solution. Our flight would land at 10:30 p.m. and we would take a cab to the Shenzhen/Hong Kong border. We heard it was about a 45 minute drive. It would be tight, but we could pick up our bags and make it to Hong Kong before midnight. Then we would catch a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau and be home in bed by 1 a.m. It would be rushed, but feasible.


Then the gong show started. Our flight from Xi'an was delayed! By an hour. When we finally arrived at the Shenzhen airport it was ten to twelve. We had 10 minutes to make it to the border (and it was a 45 minute drive).

Then we went out to catch a taxi and there were 3000 people ahead of us. Starting to panic. Wondered if we could trade one of the kids at the border to guarantee freedom for the rest. Or maybe they'd take Amanda's dad? He's a hard worker. He lifts heavy crap.

We get to the border and we have to carry ALL our luggage up the largest staircase known to man. There is no elevator. Or escalator. That would make too much sense. There were 8 of us (counting Kaid) and 10 large suitcases and 9 carry-ons. No one was crabby.

We came around the corner and assessed the situation. Two immigration officers. One male, one female. Easy choice-we picked the man. NEVER pick the woman! EVER! They are too thorough and right now we needed the OPPOSITE of thorough. As we stood in the immigration line we all said our good-byes to each other and prayed we would only be detained for a few months. Maybe we'd get a last telephone call before they took us to our cells. Or some dumplings. I hoped for dumplings, as it was now past 1 a.m. and I was starving!

Amanda went first. It made sense. If she was detained I could leave the bags and run with the kids. We could live underground in China forever. Kaidyn could busk and I could be a Filipina helper.

The guy took a long time. He looked at her passport, then at her. Back to the passport. Back to her. Flipped through the pages. Typed something into his computer. After what seemed like an eternity, he let her through. And then he let the kids and I through too.

So, we were officially out of China. But then we had to take a bus through no-mans land to get to the HK border crossing. After that we needed to get 3 taxis to the ferry terminal. The last ferry (we thought) left for Macau at 2 a.m. We got there at 2:01 a.m. No one was jolly at this point (except for Kaid). Thankfully, there was a 2:45 a.m. ferry (and the next one would have been at 4 a.m.)! So, we got home at almost 4 a.m. but were thankful to be home. As Amanda was putting Kaid to bed that night/morning he said it had been the best day of his life and he wished he could do it again. Lesson learned-get a visa in Canada BEFORE coming to China. Amanda's parents had visas that allowed them to stay for up to 30 days at a time! So-guess how thrilled they were to be joining us on our Amazing Race when they didn't even need to!

Kids in China don't wear diapers. Instead they wear pants with giant slits in the crotch. When a non-potty trained child needs to "go" they can conveniently squat anywhere. Brilliant. Or is it? There are a lot of kids in China who are not toilet trained. This makes for messy sidewalks. The best was at the airport in Xi'an. We were waiting at our gate and a little girl (three years old or so) walked over to the wall, squatted down and left her number one and two right there on the ground. Kaidyn was shocked. He had to go over and investigate. Then he said something that expressed how the rest of us were feeling, "Mom, why didn't that girl walk over there to the toilet?" The bathroom was literally about 10 meters away.