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Our Trip
December 6, 2001 - Day Nineteen, Part Two: And One To Go click HERE for Day Nineteen, Part Two Photos
Whew. That pretty much wraps it up. I know people who were hesitant to take their one year-olds to a nice restaurant, and recoiled in horror when it was suggested they take their kid on a flight. So we understood the sheer ambitiousness of flying a kid from China to Minneapolis, shuttling her through a series of hotels and restaurants. She's been really very easy through out the whole thing with a minimum of meltdowns. But the one thing that we've dreaded from the planning stages of this adoption was the flight back. Goungzhou to Seoul was not too terrible. We rested and re-habbed for seven hours and then boarded Asiana 214 for the ten hour flight to San Francisco. One of the concerns that piled on top of the rest was that Ann and I were going to have to fly separated, with her in Business and me in First Class. Granted, either one of those is GREAT. Especially since they are courtesy of frequent flier points, but with Sophia (or any child of 11 months) you need every available hand. We boarded the flight and Ann joined me up front to help get her settled. All I can say is "Thank God" for Mr. Kwak, the Chief Purser on the flight, who saw the situation and when I explained the American Airlines snafu that had caused the problem, moved Ann down to First, and then put both of us in Row One, the bulkhead. TONS of room. There were five other people up front and they could not have been more accommodating. On the flight over we luxuriated in the opulence. This time around we were kept busy for the entire flight. Ann got maybe 45 minutes of sleep. I sacked out for three or four hours and felt fortunate to get it. She really only screamed for the first hour, but she just did NOT want to go to sleep. I sat with her in the bathroom for an hour and just held her. The flight attendants propped open the door and she watched in awe as they went about their business in the galley. She was so deprived of the stimulus in the orphanage, that she just soaks in everything and can't get enough of all that is happening around her. And I think that was part of what happened on the plane. Either way, she finally got to sleep for about four hours and we arrived in SFO completely toasted. But, once again, I think that it would have been much much more exhausting if not for the incredible graciousness of the flight crew. Asiana is the BEST. Customs was a snap, and at Immigration the officer opened the sealed brown envelope that we'd been handed with her visa at the consulate in Goungzhou. The one thing that the agency and the guides POUND into your head is that you do not open the envelope. Immigration has to do it. One family popped the seal…and had to fly back to re-do the process. There was a five minute processing at Station 35 of the Immigration Bureau and sometime in the next six months, she'll get her green card. (I was hoping sooner because I want her to get a job immediately. Oh well. There's lots of snow shoveling and other stuff for her to do in the meantime.) We shuttled over to the Westin, which is where I stay when I do visits to Wild 94.9. It's about two minutes from the terminal and 30 minutes from downtown. But the commute is worth it. Westin markets their beds as "Heavenly Beds". Literally a registered trademark. FINALLY, a hotel chain that promotes something that people care about: great beds. And these are the most comfortable beds in the hotel industry. The beds in Asia are hard as a rock. So we've been looking forward to this since November 21 when we hit the Air Garden Transit Hotel in the Seoul airport. Once the guy got everything up to the room, we collapsed on the bed with a sigh that could be heard in Modesto. Even Sophia did her "snow angel" flop and gave us a look that said, translated, "What's with this great bed?" We slept for two hours. Two hours that felt like twenty hours. We then explored the hotel, took some pictures with the various decorations (it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas) and then enjoyed a wonderful, last, meal on the road in the hotel restaurant. Tomorrow
we get up at 5:15, shuttle to the terminal at 6:30 and catch the
8 am flight to Dallas where we connect to the American flight to
Minneapolis. In theory, this time tomorrow we'll be at home. Weird
thought. It seems like a YEAR since we first started. But it was
actually just three weeks. But what an amazing three weeks. Our
whole life has changed. And for the (much) better. One last post
with some pictures from the airport reception in Minneapolis, so
if I forget, thank you for following along and we're anxious for
you to meet little Ju Ju (her orphanage nickname). She's sitting
on the ground with Ann, watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas",
in her PJ's, looking very content. This is going to be a great Christmas.
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