Day 1/Day 2: Friday, May 27 & Saturday, May 28, 2005
May 27, 2005
Friday morning.....we're off to Columbus. We have an early flight to Newark, then a long long layover before we board for Hong Kong. The agency brought everyone in early, so that there was no chance that anyone would miss the flight. From here on out, we will travel as a group.
The families in our group came from Pittsburgh, Philly, Delaware, NJ, NC, and us, from Ohio. We hung out in Continental's VIP lounge.
Stephanie made some friends at the airport - playing cards with the Shaw's.
3pm flight to Hong Kong - feeling excited, nervous, happy, anxious......it's going to be a long flight.
We left Newark at 3pm on Friday heading out on our journey half way around the world......a trip that will change all our lives forever.
Our Journey to Abby
Day 1 quickly turned into Day 2. I guess that happens when you fly for 16 hours to a country that is 12 hours ahead. But......after a very long flight,
WE MADE IT HERE!!!
The airplane was pretty cool. We had our own personal tv's with a number of movie/show choices. That really helped to pass the time. We got 3 meals plus snacks. The whole trip was almost 13,000 miles. There were monitors throughout the plane tracking our route, altitude, arrival time, mph, and other fun facts. I loved it. We left NJ at 3pm Friday afternoon and arrived in Hong Kong at 7pm Saturday evening. It was daylight our entire trip. WOW! And what blue sky! We flew right past the North Pole and didn't even get a glimpse of Santa.
The airport is huge - the biggest in the world, I believe. No customs to pass through - how surprising. All of our bags made it,
Our guide here is Ben. He is very thorough and organized. His father will be our tour guide in Hong Kong. Ben is very familiar with the adoption process. He got us Hong Kong money and made sure that all of our airline tickets and departure/entry forms are in order. He even checked everyone into the hotel. It's great - no thinking - just listening. We are so tired. We left Ben at the Hong Kong airport and we won't see him again until it is time to leave Guangzhou and return to Hong Kong.
Stephie made a new friend today. Her name is Kaitlin and she's from Pittsburgh. Her family is like ours - a mom, a dad, and a 10 year old, soon to be big sister. She even has on a t-shirt like Steph's - "BIG SISTER".
Stephanie listening very closely to all of our instructions - about the hotel, exchanging money, Sunday morning Hong Kong tour, afternoon flight to China....... She was very helpful.
The Regal Hotel
It's very modern, clean and fancy.
Our hotel is great. We are setteled in for the night. It is about 10:30pm and we are waiting on a late night snack from room service. I hope we can stay awake.
We are going on a tour of Hong Kong Sunday morning, then flying to Nanning, GuangXi where we will be staying for 5 days and meeting our girls!!! So exciting!
Steph is so excited too. She can't get to sleep. She's down for a moment, then she's up talking, jumping, whatever. Soon, I'm sure, she'll run out of energy.
