Nov 18

This morning we checked out of our hotel, left our luggage with the concierge and walked over to a dim sum place called DimDim Sum and met my old friend Janet, her son Kai, and her new husband Mark for brunch. Janet used to live in San Francisco and we worked together at DI. Kai is 2 months older than Nat. They had play dates until they were about 2.5 years old, then Janet moved to Hong Kong. The kids had a nice time chatting with Kai during lunch and exchanged social media info. Hopefully they stay in touch.

The rest of the group went to Tsim Tsa Tsui to take in the sights of the HK harbor and skyline.

In the afternoon, we reunited with our group at the hotel and took a taxi over to the Kowloon train station and took high speed train to Guangzhou. The ride was under 50 minutes! It was amazing how quickly we got there. We splurged and got first class seats. It was a smooth ride.

Upon arrival, we were bused to our hotel, The Ocean Hotel. It was probably the nicest hotel on this trip.

For dinner, Po Po and Gong Gong had dinner with an old friend so the rest of us were on our own. With the help of Apple maps, we walked across the road and found a plaza with restaurants and other shops. We picked a cafeteria style restaurant and each of our plates were around $2 US each! After dinner, we shopped some retailers nearby and got fresh fruit, snacks, and drinks.

Favorite part of the day

Me: riding the high speed train from HK to Guangzhou

David: riding the high speed train

Nat: having dim sum and chatting with Kai

Tyler: hanging out with Kai