We are on the plane to Chengdu! With a continuance of answered prayers, there is no one sitting in the seat in front of Jaden. Last year, the only flight that was difficult with him was the in-country flight in China. The rows are very close together and his feet easily rest on the seat in front of him. Last time I resorted to putting him in my lap and holding his feet. Obviously he is older now and better understands what we want but still not a battle I wanted to fight. (That's part of the reason we have requested bulkhead when possible.) Out of about 150 seats on the entire plane, 2 of the 3 empty ones are in front of Jay and me. We got to Skype with NaiNai, JieJie and GeGe this morning. Jaden enjoyed that thoroughly. We had a wonderful breakfast at the Sky City Marriott at 6:30 this morning. It had an interesting mix of the East and the West. We had an egg station and a noodle station, yummy JieJie-worthy pastries, baked beans??, and a fruit bar. We left pleasantly stuffed. It was just a little over 600 HK dollars (roughly $80 US) Ouch! Luckily our breakfast was included in our room.
11:24 am
We are in the air and Jay has finally settled down. Anyone who knows him knows what he is like on sugar. He was like that, times two, this morning at the airport. He was so full of nervous energy, I was getting nervous about the 2.5 hours in flight. He did great job reining it in when asked. Speaking of sugar, he had a 4 pack of chocolate chip cookies and nibble, nibble, nibbled them until he had savored 3 of the 4. He then carefully unwrapped the 4th and said he wants to save it for MeiMei. Sweet words to this mama's ears. It occurred to Tim and me that we have been very blessed to have three kids so far that are excellent travelers. We need to add to our prayer list that Katie is a good traveler also. It is so nice to not have to dread trips. We have a niece with the same orthopedic issue that Katie has and we really hope to have the girls spend some time with each other. Bella lives in Dallas which is currently not a bad trip. Anyone care to join us in that prayer?
Next post will be from Chengdu.
8:00 pm
Tim here with some end-of-the-day thoughts.
The rest of the flight went fine. We arrived at the airport and got through customs just fine, and we were met by someone that had a card with our name but was not the guide we were told we would have. Hey, he knows our name .... Let's get in a van with him! Fortunately no organs were donated, and he got us to the hotel. On the way he was telling us how proud he is of his city.
He especially emphasized how "laid back" the people here are. Well, Jaden and I went out on an adventure this afternoon to find groceries, and apparently "laid back" is code for "we will ignore all driving laws including one way signs and we will run red lights, but because we are laid back we won't get upset about almost running you over. In fact, we won't even bother honking the horn at you because we are so relaxed here. We will just keep driving like you don't even exist."
But they will keep a constant cacophony of horns honking on the main roads, just to give a big city sound I guess.
Apparently the "laid back" approach applies to the lady who is to be our "guide" (quote marks intentional) for the rest of this week, a lady named Emily. While we were driving from the airport, the random guy that we got into the van with but who did not steal our body organs was telling us that Emily would tell us what we needed to know about the area around the hotel.
When we got to the hotel, she introduce herself and said she had to take another family back to the airport so she had to leave soon. We have to convert a large amount of money for the remaining fees, etc, that we could not wire payment for ahead of time, but she said she would take care of that Monday morning because if we go to the banks they "want to look at your passports and stuff" and apparently that is too inconvenient for her, so she said she would arrange for the money to be exchanged into Chinese currency on Monday morning. According to the adoptive mom who was leaving Chengdu today, that involves "somebody shows up with a wad of money and you exchange money without any fees or anything." Um, ... Okay? I guess that works, too????!!?? (She did have her child with her, so I guess this system works),
Anyway, our "guide's" orientation to Chengdu involved getting us checked into the hotel, saying to wait to convert your money until Monday (um, I guess our rugged good looks will get us fed), she said she would "probably" call us Sunday night, and "don't die before then" ... Okay, I added the last quote but it seemed that her other instructions were a little lacking to me so I was trying to help her out.
Oh well, we are here, and we didn't die, so I guess we are off to a good start!
A bit of a rocky orientation to Chengdu but we will get settled in and everything will be great!
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