Fwd: Catching up

[Daniel]  I have blogged yet... so catching up.

Getting Here
The first indicator of the day ahead was when I checked the flight status from home in the morning.  The noon flight from Indy was 7 minutes delayed at 6am.  Left Indy a few hours late due to late arrival of our plane and they had to log a minor mechanical issue -- this would turn out to be important information later.

We arrived in Minneapolis 10 minutes before our Tokyo flight.  With a change of clothes in our carry on we were prepared to make a run for it.  However, they had a desk with everyone's alternate arrangements for missed flights.  We found our info and told the guy... we'll run.  He said they wouldn't let us on the plane.   We attempted to work with him to find alternate routes; he wasn't helpful.

Back to the front of the airport to the ticket counters.  It was like the Amazing Race where people are attempting to find the quickest route.  Rushing to each ticket station and then back.  We were on North West (owned by Delta) so we started there.  The lady we talked with look at some options but said nothing would get us there sooner.  She also indicated the cause of they delay was weather from where the plane was coming from prior to Indy.

Next we whet to a non-Delta owned airline, American.  We talked with a very understanding and helpful man who researched options and found one that leaving that night to LAX then to Beijing.  However, the cost to purchase was high... we considered it while researching other options.  We attempted other North West representatives and ticket desks but we were missed directed a few times.  One person said we could just use the machine to select new flights.... Well that is only true for domestic and we told her our destination was Beijing.  So, we knew American had an option and headed back to the North West desk with this information.  Now we are back to the same person that wasn't very helpful nor understanding.  While in line another representative assisted in working the line.  We had hope that maybe he could help.  As we get closer, we are not sure if we'd get him or not.  The guy is front of us goes to the new representative and starts his long story... oh no this is going to take awhile.  But just a few seconds later the representative gives him the info and he's off.

Our turn.  We explained our situation to Don S and provided him the alternate route info American had found.  He looked up the info... It was North West to LAX and then Air China to Beijing.  So, the issue was Air China and the type of business relationship they have.  I don't understand it all.  But Don called Air China and asked if they had 2 seats on that flight... they did.  About that time the first representative came over when the line cleared.  Her body language was clear.  I think she was just as annoyed with us as we were with her.  Don explained the alternate flight and there were seats available.  He also mentioned that our Indy flight was delayed due to weather and a minor maintenance issue.  We forgot...Yes, in Indy we sat at the gate while they "logged" the maintenance item.  I think the weather was the primary cause of delay however both were listed.  Each representative had the same information but chose to take different actions.  Don S got our new tickets, boarding passes and also arranged to have our luggage out of "storage" and on our new flight.  With a hand shake, we were off to contact our adoption agency to let them know of our new plans.  Thank God for Don S.

Forbidden City and The Great Wall
First impression... lots and lots of people.  Second... this is very cool to think about my location and the history around me.  Third...  I expected more foreigners.  I didn't see any non-Asian looking people but Debbie said she saw one couple.  Often we were shoulder to shoulder in hot and humid weather.  Polite pushing and brushing of shoulders is the only way to move.  Everyone does it and no one treated us any different from the next guy.

The Great Wall was a nice change.  Our guide said we could take the right or left side with the right being more popular as it was steeper.  More popular = more people.  We took the left.  Not everyone in our group made it or even attempted.  It was hot and humid and I could feel the difference in altitude.  We stopped often to rest.  The height of each step is inconsistent.  You have to look at your feet as the steps range from 1 to 6 bricks high.  It was nice to be out of the city with fewer people and amazing views.  Attached is a picture of a tower that was along the wall with the sign.  I was amused.

Dining Adventure
Debbie and I would never do this by ourselves, but going with the group was fun.  We asked our guide where she would go to eat.  She suggested a place just a few blocks from the hotel and wrote the Chinese characters for us.  Armed with a phrase book, one page cheat sheet and the hand signals for 0-9 we were on our own... 8 of us.  Hand signals...1-5 are just as you expect.  6-9 still use one hand.  Our guide said this was from and old form of bargaining where individuals required their deal to remain private.  Each person uses one hand under a cloth so the numbers are not visible but can be determined by feel.  A person seemed glad to help us find the place and we used our "8" signal and quickly got a table.  Menus were provide.... all Chinese... no pictures.  One of our group is an experienced traveler, so we all just looked at him.   He said... "We'll get through this".  We weren't sure but he was right.  Ordering was rough... pointing at items on other tables was the best method.  No one in the restaurant spoke any English.  At this point we were beginning to be the dinner entertainment for others.  The waitress got a little frustrated and called in backup.  The first successful order was beer and water.  Someone with the phrase book found "beer" and said the translation.  The waitress's face got a little hope back.  And someone else provided the "8" signal.   We ordered several items by pointing at other tables or pointing at items on the cheat sheet.  The first few items I had were good... a few chicken items.  The next look interested... a meat ... kind of looks like chicken.  First bit got a bone... just small and the meat was not as tender.  I tried a few more and each bit had bits of bone.  Done with that one.  The next day, our guide confirmed that it was pigeon.  It was a nice evening and everyone in the restaurant seemed to be entertained and didn't mind us being there.

Katie
We got Katie today.  All the girls in our group were taken to a hotel where the governmental social office has a floor rented.  They arrived in town today as the orphanages are closed to visitors due to H1N1.  The hotel is under heavy construction with the lobby gutted and a particle board tunnel to get the elevators.  In the middle of a construction zone -- dusty.  I don't think the hotel was being used otherwise.  Anyway... we got her.  She seems to be adjusting well and has been sleeping through her first night (it's 4:30 in the morning).

At last...

We have Katie!  She's absolutely wonderful!!!!!!!

Things have gone very smoothly, she seems to be attaching to both of us quickly.  Tomorrow is another big day as we finish paperwork.  We will then be here until her passport is ready at the end of the week.

(It's just after 8pm and she's already asleep...now if she'll sleep until 6am, we'll be in business! :))

the daily grind of touring China

It's 6am on Monday morning...Gotcha Day!  I can't sleep anymore, I can already tell this day is going to drag until 3:30 when we meet our babies.

So here's a little of what it's been like to travel in China so far...

The people here are overall very friendly, in Beijing, we blended in as tourists and no one took a second look at us.  Here in Nanning, we stand out, a lot.  We have not seen any other caucasians yet.  There are no black people anywhere.  The Han Chinese are the majority here but honestly I can't tell the difference between any of them, they are all unique and I'm starting to see that but there's not one thing that sets one ethnic group apart from another. 

They speak one of three languages here, Candarin, cantonese and honestly I've forgotten the third.  Most likely Katie has heard Cantonese. 

The one child policy is a little easier to understand as we move from one area to another.  Beijing was incredibly crowded with 18 billion people there...it's a HUGE city!  It is not as crowded here but with all of the apartment buildings and such here, one suspects that there are a lot of people here too.

Someone apparently forgot to tell Nanning that we're in a global recession as there is development everywhere.  Huge apartment buildings are going up everywhere you look, it's absolutely unreal.

As we left Beijing yesterday, I snapped a photo of the airport and looking at it now, one can see how bad the smog is there and they claim it is much better than it used to be.  It's just like a fog that lies over the city most of the time.  There is evidence everywhere of the country trying to conserve.  At the airport in Beijing, we saw free water stations where you could refill  your water bottle.  Or if you just wanted a little drink, there were these little paper-like envelopes that you could put a little water in and drink from directly.  We had a person on the street come up to us and ask if they could have our nearly empty water bottle, we gave it to her.  She appeared to be a beggar and we wondered if she collected things to recycle in an effort to raise some money.

Brushing your teeth in China takes a bit of thought as you don't dare run water from the tap on your toothbrush, the hotels all provide bottled water for you to brush your teeth with.  This was the same in Russia and I'm sure many other countries on this side of the world.

Going to the bathroom can be interesting.  The hotels that we are staying at are all Western, so that's no problem but when you are out and about, the bathrooms are a little less accommodating, especially for women.  Basically you have a stall that has a hole in the floor and you squat.  There's no toilet paper, so you have to take your own tissue and of course you need your own hand sanitizer.

The bed in our room in Beijing was huge and the room very modern.  Our hotel in Nanning is nearly brand new and nice but the room is fairly small with two beds that seem to be smaller than a double bed.  We have one tv channel that is in english, it's some sort of news channel and so far has been relatively interesting to watch.  The only news we've seen from the U.S. is about Michael Jackson and that drama. 

Rice...ok, I'm getting tired of rice.  We eat it at every meal.  There's a Pizza Hut at the mall next door, we'll probably be checking that out real soon.  Plus there are KFC's everywhere. 

Last night at dinner, we ordered several different dishes to share.  One of them which we thought was chicken was interesting as it still had very small bones in it, you were able to crunch some of them up and some you had to work around.  I don't think that was chicken, pigeon maybe.

We had read in one of the guidebooks that some restaurants in this province eat dog, I wish I were kidding but that's one thing we haven't seen here...stray animals of any sort.  Hmmm??

It is very tropical here.  There are palm trees and the humidity is incredible.  When we arrived at the airport, the temperature was 90, the heat indexes for the week are to be between 100-117 degrees F.  The humidity almost takes your breath away.  I'm glad for the air conditioning though we've been warned that our daughters aren't used to the A/C and could easily become sick if we keep the rooms too cool--not to mention all of the other stressors they will be dealing with.

Breakfast is finally going to start in 20 minutes.  We're starving!  We brought lots of snacks with us but are trying only to eat them when we really need them since it's still early in our trip.

(The photo I'm trying to attach is the airport in Beijing and the smog.)

Nanning

We arrived safely in Nanning today.  It's just a three hour  flight which was fairly unremarkable; one can pick our travel group out quite easily as there are few Caucasians here than in Beijing.  Everyone is friendly though. 

This is the area of China where people come to admire the scenery; it is stunning here!  We arrived just in time to see it start raining--our guide, Cindy, tells us that this is the beginning of the remnants of the tropical storm that hit Hong Kong the day before.  It's pouring down rain!!!!!!  And it's not supposed to stop all week!  Monsoon season is definitely upon us!

After arriving at our hotel, the group decided to have one last meal together without the babies.  Our guide suggested a Chinese restaurant not far from our hotel that was next to a shopping mall.   I guess we were all feeling a little adventurous as none of us speak or read Chinese.  We were promptly seated at a large table and a menu was brought to us.  Unfortunately, the menu had no photos or anything that we could make out.  We did have a "cheat sheet" that our coordinator had given us the day before so we could point to things on it and actually we had a decent family style meal.  The 8 of us ate for less than $45--total!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After dinner, we wondered to the Chinese Walmart--it sure looks a lot like our Wal-marts at home.  The only thing we purchased was a large jug of water for $0.70 to make bottles with.  They seemed to have everything we could ever need there though, even Huggies and Pampers brand diapers.

Well, finally the day is here.  We have an appointment to meet Katie at 3:30pm this afternoon.  That's only 13 hours and 45 minutes from now!!! 

Our guides have told us to be prepared for anything.  Many of the babies will cry as they are scared, not to mention that we will be required to wear masks in the building when we meet our girls due to the swine flu...that will certainly add to the drama. 

We can hardly wait!!!!!!!!

A busy day!

First of all, it appears that I can't post directly to the blog, however, Daniel has things set up so that I can email the blog and it should show up.  So hopefully, that will work.  It may look different but at least it's something.

I'll start back on Thursday when we left, our flight out of Indy was delayed and finally arrived 2 1/2 hours late which in turn made us miss our connecting flight to Tokyo.  Northwest was rescheduled us for the same flight on the next day which just wasn't going to work for us...that would mean that we would miss the only day we had in Beijing and we'd be leaving right away to go to Nanning.  So finally, we got a little insight from a United Airlines worker who told us that there was a flight out of Minneapolis to L.A. and then onto Beijing so after a lot of coercing, Northwest finally scheduled us on those flights and we were on our way.

We arrived in Beijing this morning at 5am.  Even after 31 hours of traveling and very little sleep, we felt good and energetic.  We made it through the quarantine checkpoint without any issue though if something comes up, we could still be quarantined up to 7 days.  Our adoption coordinator met us at the airport with a van and driver and we were on our way in no time.  We arrived at the hotel at 6:40 and had time to shower and get breakfast before our group met to go sightseeing at 9am.

We finally were able to meet the other three families in our group.  They all seem very nice and I think we'll get along fine. 

The Forbidden City was first on the list.  We, along with at least half a million other people walked through the Forbidden City together.  It was quite a crowd.  All of the locals carry umbrellas to help shade them from the sun which was hot but not any hotter than Indiana on a hot day.  So of course, you are always getting poked in the head by other people's umbrellas...there were a lot of people there!!!!!!

Then it was off to the Great Wall of China.  The entire wall was 4000 miles long, though a lot of it is now gone from neglect.  We were able to climb a section of it.  It's not an easy task--especially when you're feeling a little worn out anyway!

We got new information about Katie today also.  She takes 6 bottles with formula mixed with rice cereal a day...including one at midnight...I can see a change coming, probably not right away but we can start working towards that.  Her nickname is Qui Qui, pronounced, "choo choo", Sam will like that!

So we're exhausted and are hoping for a quiet night's sleep!  We leave in the morning for Nanning!

On our way!

We have packed, re-packed, worried, prayed, celebrated, said our goodbyes and are finally ready to go.

We have more than everything we could ever need, from Tamiflu to hopefully prevent getting H1N1, to anti-malarial drugs, antibiotics for ourselves and Katie, lice medication, scabies medication, the list goes on and on.

We have two suitcases each under the in-China weight limit of 44 pounds, a carry-on, which, I kid you not, has all of our (D & D) clothes in it and a backpack which will double as a diaper bag on the way home.

I'm sure Daniel crammed over 50 diapers (we can buy more in China) in the suitcases, 2 cans of formula (also can get more if necessary) and all of the other things that Katie might need--she's spoiled already! :)

Our first flight today is already delayed by 7 minutes. We will fly to Minneapolis, have a grueling three hour layover, then an 11 hour flight to Tokyo, with a two hour layover, where I told Sam we might have to eat fried octopus...it's on the menu--I checked! (there are American snacks in the carry-on, if needed:)) And then finally to Beijing. It's almost a full 24 hours of traveling. We will arrive in Beijing at 10:30pm Friday, China time--that's 10:30 Friday am in Indiana.

After nearly four years of planning, I can't believe it's finally here! Last night, I asked Daniel what we would do next? What a relief it will be to have Katie home and get back into a normal routine that doesn't revolve around the roller coaster of international adoption!!!!

Next time?...from Beijing!

A Great Send-Off!

Daniel's co-workers threw a baby shower for him today! He knew something was up as there had been a lot of questions being asked and today they surprised him with lots of yummy food and very generous gifts!