6:44 am on Thu Jan 15 Central Time
The trip is winding down ... this was our last night in Guangzhou. But first I'll tell you about our day. Breakfast buffet in the White Swan dining room and then off to the races. We spent our morning checking out all of the wonderful things that we could buy to bring home and show Abby more about her homeland. The quality of the paintings and hand crafted items here is so incredible, and for prices that are so unbelieveably low. How do they make a living?
This afternoon we met as a group at the famous White Swan "red couch" for the traditional adoption group photos of the girls and families. That is the bulk of our pics today in the Jan 15 album, they are so funny. We had the 4 younger girls on the couch for some squirming and fussing, but Carly (almost 3) would not come near them! Can you blame her? :-)
Then after pics we headed to the American Consulate with only passports in hand (no cameras or bags, backpacks, etc allowed) and stood in a room of 70+ people and babies. This was the 3rd ceremony for the day, it is a very busy week at the Consulate with it being closed for a few days now for ML King bday and then for Chinese New Year. A representative of the Consulate came out and asked all the adoptive parents to raise their right hand and affirm that the information contained in all of our documents was true to the best of our knowledge. We answered yes as a large group and that was it ... for all the red tape and forms to fill out and fees to pay, that was that! A very important step but very non-ceremonious.
We walked back to the hotel and then met up a short while later for a group dinner. Echo took us to a nearby traditional Chinese restaurant, and the food was wonderful. There were 11 of us (plus the 5 girls) and the entire bill for food, drinks and tip was $80 US total. Good food and good prices, we are going to miss that when we return to the States!
I will post more details of our journey homeward tomorrow ... we will be here in Guangzhou until mid-afternoon, then head to Hong Kong by train. We arrive on Northwest Airlines at 5pm on Sat Jan 17 for anyone close enough to Peoria who would like to join our small welcoming committee ... more tomorrow from Guangzhou!
Lisa
12:20 am on Fri Jan 16 Central Time
Our long journey home is about to begin! We are packed and had our last meal in Guangzhou, and we will be checking out of the White Swan Hotel in about an hour.
Echo is at the Consulate getting the girls' visas, and we will leave the hotel about 3:45 pm, take a bus to the train station, and then take the 5:20 pm train to Hong Kong. It arrives in Hong Kong about 7:20 pm and then we have about an hour bus ride to the hotel. So we'll arrive at the Regal Airport Inn sometime between 8:30-9pm, which is 6:30-7am on Fri morning Central Time.
Our flight leaves Hong Kong at 8:40 am on Sat Jan 17 (6:40 pm Fri night Central Time). Our group is splitting up at this point, some of us flying on Northwest and others on United. We all miss our families and want to be home very badly ... but the thought of the long plane ride is not very exciting! We fly from Hong Kong to Tokyo (4 hr flight) with the Overbey's and Kinnamon's, then in Tokyo we split up. Kinnamon's head on to Detroit and then home, Overbey's to Seattle and then to Minneapolis to meet our plane there (ha) and fly into Peoria with us ... and we go from Tokyo to Minneapolis (12 hr flight) and then to Peoria (1.5 hr flight). We have about a 5 hr layover in Minneapolis, leaving there around 3:30 pm Central Time and arriving in Peoria at 5pm.
This has been an incredible trip. We have learned so much about China and the beautiful, kind people who live here. How can we ever show them our gratitude for allowing this wonderful child to join our family ... I think it is impossible. We have had a good reaction from the local population, one man in particular talked with Mitch after we deplaned here in Guangzhou and told him how much he appreciated our humanity in adopting Abby. Others have pointed at her and said "lucky baby", but honestly we are the lucky ones. Yes, her life is changing, but so is ours ... she is a gift from above. Lots of paperwork and red tape, but all the time and all the delays over the past 16 mos lined up the timing perfectly for her file to be matched with ours. She is truly heaven sent.
We cannot wait to see the boys ... and for the boys to see Abby and for Abby to meet her brothers! Our return to Peoria will be joyous and emotional, and again, anyone close who would like to be there is more than welcome.
Signing off from Guangzhou ... and probably until we arrive home!
Lisa