Limbo Day

Today was the day we do nothing as we wait for the province to give us our daughter's Chinese passport. I woke to the China of two years ago. It began with that familiar gray haze blocking the sun which I thought at first was fog. But fog isn't so illusive or hovering. Fog goes away. It drifts, has movement. This was no fog. It didn't lift. Pollution, China's shame - one of them - lingers and taunts this country's progress - a shadow forcing conscience for the damage it's reeking on our planet. A trip to the city wall confirmed the vapor veil would continue to hinder our view for the day. 

This morning the girls and I walked through the neighborhood behind the hotel. I'll save the photos for Breeda's blog. She had her first view of an authentic local neighborhood and street market. 

Later our guide took us to a brocade silk museum where we saw looms 20 feet long by 10 foot high shared by two loomers - one at the top, another the bottom. A complex contraption that involved one dictating the intricate pattern from a series of ropes at the top to the other pulling the silk at the bottom. A craft passed generation to generation for thousands of years reeks, like everything else from ancient China, of intensive labor.

Another stroll to the other side of the Hunan Road and at last a Starbucks where I bought my first decent cup of English Breakfast tea. Tomorrow afternoon we get Lila's passport, share a celebratory meal with our guide and travel group - all of us now sans husbands who have returned or, like mine, are still in route, home - and finally head to Guangzhou on Saturday. White Swan here we come.