I tried going to bed a few minutes ago, but Tina says I absolutely must blog first, and of course she's right.
I should dump some pictures in here, but that would take some more work, we'll see how I feel when I get to the end as to whether or not I have the energy left to hook up the camera and dump in the pix.
First of all, I just want to warn those of you who are reading this in anticipation of your own upcoming adoption trip that the experience of traveling abroad in Asia can have its share of discomforts and challenges associated with it. Developing countries aren't like home, and we found this to definitely be true as we set out on this journey. However the worst of the hardships and challenges we've been faced with so far were the conditions at LAX. I'm telling you, that place is a HOLE!. I mean really, how can a North American Airport of this size be such a dump? The smell, the filth, the horror of the security checkpoints, I really can't convey the trauma we felt passing through there. It was like an Orwellian, post-apocolyptic wasteland. And that we went from there to the airport in Hong Kong, which is absolutely beautiful which only underlined the nastiness of LAX.
There was one little glitch in Hong Kong. after we cleared security there (which was a breeze), and were making our way to the next gate, we noticed that someone was missing from our party. "Where's Stinky-Mouse," Tina asked. "Gone," was the answer. We had progressed up and down a couple sets of escalators and around a few odd-degree turns by the time we discovered his absence. Tina and Kai stayed with our luggage and I (Scott) headed back to see if we left him at the security check-point. I assume my sister is laughing already now, because she of all people knows that I am not the person you want to send on a recovery mission into unknown territory. You see, my sense of direction is not...
Well it's not, OK? It's just not at all. And so two minutes after leaving them and trying to retrace our steps through this maze of airport mall storefronts and backlit signs, I quickly slipped into a full on panic attack. Not only did I not know where I was going, but was now worried about getting back. I turned around and got back to Tina and Kai and told them they would have to come with me. Tina of course was able to walk us straight back to where we had been, and Mouse was there! Yay!
We pressed on and soon were in Beijing. Now I have to tell you, that Kai was an amazing little trooper through this whole travel leg of the trip. We left our house Monday morning at 8:30 AM and didn't get him put to bed in a hotel room until 5:30 AM Wednesday morning Bellingham time. That's about 45 hours straight of being on the go. He slept on various airplanes along the way, but still, that's a long haul.
It's really strange being here in China again, not quite two years after our last trip. We had no problems in the Beijing airport, and the 3 suitcases we had not seen since checking them in Seattle all appeared unharmed on the correct carrousel. We collected them and headed out to the front of the airport. There was a sea of guides holding signs. We started scanning them, looking for Bob, the guide we had in Baoding and Shijaizhuang when we adopted Kai, and there at the end we spotted him! He had a huge grin on his face and looked as excited to see us as we were to see him. Kai ran right up to him and gave him a big hug, then Tina and I hugged him as well. We loaded our luggage into his car and headed off for Baoding. As we drove along over the same stretch of road we had been on two years ago, catching up with Bob on one another's family, it was the oddest feeling. Two years ago this whole experience was so foreign and full of unknowns. And now we find ourselves relaxed and getting reacquainted with an old friend. It felt really, really good!
We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was named something like "Beautiful Flower Mountain" which is the home of The Monkey King. The front of the building was decorated to look like a big rocky mountain, and perched upon it was a golden statue of The Monkey King. So we've seen him already! The food was excellent and we visited more with Bob.
And, now, I am completely exhausted, so I promise to post more tomorrow. The pictures will have to wait till then - there aren't any of Shen yet, so I don't feel too guilty about that.
We're safe, we're here, we're happy.
More to follow!
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