Travel Diary: Day One

I woke up around 9 this morning and my first thought was, breakfast ends at 10:30.  I've heard a lot about this breakfast buffet at The Garden!  I woke Kinley and Zeke up and we threw on some clothes and headed downstairs.  We were a little adventurous in our food choices--I had rice and fried noodles, and Zeke had some beef bacon--but mostly stuck to our American standbys, like toast and jelly and fried eggs.  We walked across the street to visit Starbucks before we came back to the room.

The first week of adoption trips to China is spent in the child's province, and the second is spent in Guangdong Province where the US Consulate that handles adoptions is located.  Some families are in one province until Friday, and then travel here, but because Judy Lin is from this province, we get to stay here the entire two weeks!  That means that we have a definite advantage, not only in staying in this gorgeous hotel for two weeks, but also in unpacking and making ourselves at home!  We were able to completely unpack, rearrange our furniture, get gifts together, and get everything organized for our stay without having to worry about repacking in a few days.  It was nice to feel settled in!

We decided to check out the rest of the hotel, then go out for lunch. Our initial plan was to come right back after lunch and rest some, and then get out later for grocery shopping and dinner.  However, when we got out, we just decided to keep going!

We walked through our hotel and checked out the pool, the rooftop views, the restaurants, and the flower shop.  It really is beautiful here.  We changed some money and headed out for lunch.

We found McDonald's and decided on some quick comfort food.  After we ate, we walked into the 7-11 and through a little mall that is connected to McDonald's.  It was interesting to see what products were the same as those we have at home and which ones were very different!  Then we searched for a grocery store without finding it, so we changed directions and went to another one.  We walked through the department store first, and then found the floor with the grocery store.  That was interesting!  We picked up a few Chinese snacks to try, but we also grabbed Snickers and Coke.  The exchange rate worked in our favor--we got quite a bit of food for less than $20!  We also went up to the toy floor and got a sweet little bunny that we had heard was a must--it lights up and plays Chinese music and Chinese nursery rhymes.  Hopefully, if our sweet girl is upset tomorrow, she might like to hear her language and see the lights.  We actually took the wrong escalator out of the hotel, but we found Wal-Mart and another Starbucks on the backside, so it wasn't a total loss!

At that point we were hot and getting tired, so we walked back to our hotel.  We decided to shower, try to stay awake and just rest, and order room service for dinner.  However, after the shower, we could barely keep our eyes open!  We tried our best, but I finally set an alarm and caved.  About an hour and a half later, Zeke woke me up, but I swear my arms and legs wouldn't move.  I was mostly awake, but I couldn't make myself get up for anything.  Jet lag is a real thing!  We ordered our food and ate, and now it's time for bed again!

Random things we noticed while we were out today:

• We were the ONLY people wearing sunglasses on a very sunny day.
• We were the ONLY people wearing short-sleeved shirts.  It was 70 degrees.  Most people had on jackets, sweatshirts, or coats. ?????
• All of the sweet little babies we saw had on so many layers!  They were puffy.  It was cute but I thought they had to be hot!
• Kids are kids, regardless of where they are or what language they speak.  I'm pretty sure we saw a Chinese version of Camp today :)

Tomorrow is our Gotcha Day!  The diaper bag is packed and the crib is ready!  We will meet our guide and another family in the lobby at 9:30 to go over paperwork, and we leave for the civil affairs office at 2:00.  I can't wait to hold my baby girl.  It seems unreal that tomorrow night, we will have our second daughter in this room.  Although she has been ours in our hearts since we said yes, she is officially spending her last night as an orphan tonight.  It will be the last time she will lay her head down without a mommy and daddy to comfort her if she cries.  Tomorrow, finally, I will get to kiss those sweet cheeks and tell her I love her.  We have prayed all day that she will feel at home with us and that her little heart will be open to receive our love.  I can't wait!

Travel Diary: Travel Day!

Travel Day started out super early in the morning!  We planned for a 4:15 a.m. departure from our house, on the Papa Bus, to Huntsville International Airport.  If you know us well, you know that means we left at about 4:30.  We had three big suitcases and each had our backpacks as carryons.  Somehow, we (think that we) fit everything we need for four people and two weeks in China in those!    Sweet Papa dropped us off, then parked while we got our boarding passes and checked our luggage.  The sweet Delta lady had trouble printing our boarding passes because of the infant notes for our return trip, and when we explained why we didn't have the infant with us yet, she said, "My pastor is adopting from China!"  When we asked her where she went to church and she replied that she went to Lifepoint, we told her that that was where we had heard about our little girl for the first time.  She said, "Oh, y'all are them!"  It made me smile--God has definitely worked in this story! Papa walked us upstairs and prayed with us before we went through security.  We had just enough time to grab some breakfast and get on the plane.

The trip to Detroit was easy--except that was when Kinley started getting nervous.  She did great though, and we arrived in snowy Detroit right on schedule and with plenty of time to walk around and grab one final meal at our favorite stand-by Chick-fil-a before boarding the plane.

Kinley had worked out her nerves and was excited on the plane to Beijing.  We had a small delay because when they counted the luggage before takeoff the count was off.  We finally got to take off!  We realized that 14+ hours on a plane is a LONG time!  We watched some movies, Zeke and I caught up on The Big Bang Theory and Fixer Upper, we ate some mediocre airplane food, and took a few really short naps which really didn't amount to much sleep.  When we finally touched down in Beijing, we were more than ready to stretch our legs and walk around.  We made it through immigration and were approved to enter the country (thank goodness!).  However, that was about the time I turned airplane mode off on my phone, and we had a text from Lifeline that said it looked like our third flight, from Beijing to Guangzhou, had been cancelled.  We kept following signs to go through security, hoping that we could get something worked out.  We didn't tell Kinley, who wasn't feeling well from exhaustion and not really eating, and was getting nervous again at all of the signs she couldn't read and people she couldn't understand.  When we got to the security checkpoint to be able to transfer to another flight, we got stuck.  We had a camera and a battery pack in our backpacks.  For some reason, they had to be taken out, walked across a huge carpet, and handed back to us.  I still don't really understand what happened, but they let us keep them and keep going, so we just shrugged and kept walking!

We followed the herd and found the ticket gate for China Southern.  I walked up and asked them about our cancelled flight and they told me there was another flight at 7:30, and to walk around the corner and turn right and they would change it.  We walked around the corner and to the right, waited in a long line of people checking bags, and finally were told we had to go to the ticket counter to change our ticket.  I told her that we had just done that, but she told me to go back.  So...back we went.  Thankfully, the guy who told us to go there in the first place took our boarding passes and walked us back over and went behind the counter (no waiting in line again!) and had them fix it and check our luggage.  Whew.  One more time through security, and we were on our way to our gate.

We got to our gate around 5:30 and knew we would board at 6:45.  We were all a little bit hungry and Kinley and I kept seeing McDonald's bags, so we walked around until we found it and grabbed a snack for all of us.  We spent the rest of our wait trying not to go to sleep.

The final plane was very nice--probably the newest plane we were on.  We were in the middle row, so we all got to sit together.  Kinley was nervous again and this time we were the only Americans on the flight--pilots and crew included--but thankfully, the exhaustion took over and she slept most of the flight.  She woke up for essential oils and crashed again.  This flight had the most turbulence of the three, and there were several people using the little bags by the time the flight ended.  If you know me, you know Kinley and I had our fingers in our ears so we wouldn't join them!

After we picked up our checked baggage (THANK YOU GOD that it all made it with us!), we met our guide, Aron.  That little green sign that said "Lifeline Children's Services" really let me take a deep breath!  It was nice to have someone direct us the rest of the way.  When she saw our luggage she asked us, "Is this all you have?  You packed light!"  I couldn't decide whether to laugh (because I wasn't sure I could fit everything we had into our suitcases before we left) or worry (that I didn't bring enough!).  We headed up to the car that was waiting for us and began the 30 minute drive to our hotel.

We had heard so much about The Garden Hotel, and it did not disappoint!  This hotel is AMAZING.  We are so happy to be here for two weeks!  Aron checked us in and came to our room with us to make sure we had everything we needed.  The crib sitting in our room made my heart skip a beat! It really started to seem real that we are here and will soon have a sweet baby girl in this room with us.  We can't wait!  After she left we decided to hold off on anything other than sleep until tomorrow.  We changed clothes, washed our faces and brushed our teeth, and crashed.  It was almost 1 a.m. in Guangzhou, or 11 a.m. at home.  30 hours of travel with very little sleep caught up with us quickly!