Home Sweet Home

I don't know why, but I was almost surprised by how excited I was to go back to Nanjing. I was tired, and I wanted to go home.

Home.

It's nice to take the time to remember that China was home. We loved our life there.

Anyways, we got back LATE (or early, however you want to look at it) and we were very excited to crash and go to sleep.

We had reserved a hotel room for the parents at the hotel right next door so we wouldn't have to all crowd in our little studio apartment and we had set up bed spaces for everyone else at our place before we left so we could just get in and go straight to bed. Spencer took Mom and Dad to check in while the girls and I went up to our apartment and just a few minutes later Spencer walked into the apartment...with the parents...and all of their luggage. Turns out the hotel NO LONGER TAKES FOREIGNERS. My jaw literally dropped as Spencer tells me this. So here's what happened: the Chinese government requires everyone to register wherever you go within the country. So, for instance, if you live in Nanjing and go to Beijing for a week then you are supposed to register with the police in Beijing so they know that you're there. To facilitate this process, the government has it set up so that hotels can register for you (which is why you have to present your passport at every hotel in China). Apparently the law had just recently changed as to how hotels do that, and the hotel next door "was not equipped" to handle the new system.

So it's 2:30 am, we're all EXHAUSTED, and we have to completely rearrange our entire apartment to make sleeping space for everyone.

Let's just say I was less than pleased.

And in retrospect, I realize that we never took a picture of our crazy sleeping arrangements. Shame on me.

So with our late night, we decided to throw all our preconceived plans out the window for our first day in Nanjing. We had a mountain of laundry to do, we were all tired, and we just needed to recover from a week of going nonstop. So we stayed home instead. We did laundry, played games, and Spencer and I gave out presents.

Fireworks, baby!

I miss this view...

That night for dinner we went to Spicy Joint, one of our favorite restaurants in Nanjing, with the remaining Flagship couples (most of them had gone back to the States by then). We ended up waiting for FOREVER to get a table because there were so many of us, but it was a very fun night and we really enjoyed introducing Spencer's family to our friends and to some of our favorite Chinese foods.

Low-key, but very productive. And that was day one in Nanjing.