Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Steve, Heather, Ed, Joe, Emily, Hana, Zeke and Samuel!
November 22 - 23, 2007 And Let the
Journey to Samuel
Begin
Steve, Heather and Joe left the house at 4:00 am Thursday (i.e., Thanksgiving Day) morning. Our plane was scheduled to leave Albuquerque for San Francisco at 6:40 am and all went off without a hitch. We had six bags with us, three for clothing and stuff and three for our orphanage donation. All bags were tagged straight through to Guangzhou, China and we settled in for a very long trip.
Our flight to San Francisco was about three hours in duration and then we had a couple of hours before catching “the flight.” It took a little doing, but we were able to sit together on the flight to Hong Kong and ended up positioned pretty well for movie viewing.
The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was just over 14 hours and, during that time, we basically ate (two meals, a snack, and drink service), watched movies, listened to music, wandered around the plane to stretch our legs and look out the window, and slept a little.
A little about “the flight:” Starting with the movies, there were four movies offered. It is hard to comprehend how it is possible to have such rotten movies. First, we watched “Hairpray.” Now that was pretty good, we’d seen the traveling broadway company play, and enjoyed it. From there on, the movie viewing went downhill. Something called “Hot Rod” was offered and it had to be just about the worst movie we’d ever seen. It was actually pretty funny, but more in terms of funny because it was soooooo bad and soooooo “home-made” like. This movie ranks right up there with “The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” Next was “The Invisible,” and then “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” We “don’t do” Harry Potter stuff so that was lost on us. Movies finished up with something that was just plain trash and we can’t remember what it was called, but it was not scheduled to be shown and shouldn’t have.
Looking out the window was fascinating. Flying from New Mexico to California was just beautiful. The mountains and plains, rivers, lakes, and various cities really make you realize just how big our country is and just how varied the terrain/geography is as you fly over. On the flight from California to Hong Kong, we flew over a lot of water, for many hours, and basically, like on our last two trips, flew up the west cost, past Alaska, around Russia and then were able to see Japan, and specifically Tokyo, while we were flying over. What a beautiful country. Tokyo was huge.
We landed in Hong Kong without incident, easily found China Southern, and waited for our last flight that would take us to Guangzhou. The flight to Guangzhou was less than an hour and we were glad to finally be at our destination.
In Guangzhou we went through the health screening, then on to collect our bags (all made it without incident), and then through customs. We didn’t go through customs in Hong Kong since we were just passing through and it wasn’t a destination for us.
When we came out of customs, Leila, our coordinator from All God’s Children International (known as “Families are Forever” in China) was waiting for us. Leila was our coordinator last year when we came for our son, Ezekiel, and we were thrilled to be with her again. It was nice to see a familiar face.
We finally made it to the Victory Hotel, where we’re staying on Shamian Island, in Guangzhou. On our last two trips we stayed at The White Swan so this is a little different. We got settled in our room and then contacted our family at home.
The best thing we could have done was purchase a couple of webcams (one for us in China and one for home) and download a free copy of Skype. Thanks Demian for letting us know about this technology and we already agree, Skype is a must, especially when not everyone is able to travel. We were able to not only speak to everyone at home, but see them and they could see us. We’ve Skyped (not sure if you can use that word in this way, but it works for this application) a few times now and we believe that having the capability to see each other will really help, especially with the little ones.
We miss you guys and will be in contact with you several times a day while here. Wish all of you could be here this time, but realize that it just wasn’t possible. We’ll do our best to make sure you’re part of this journey every step of the way as we prepare for Samuel to join our family.
Ed, Emily, Hana and Zeke we love you. Take care and we’ll talk, and see you, soon. And thanks Aunt Sue and Grandma for taking care of things at home for us. We know it’s not easy given all that you have to do as far as the kids and animals.
