Leaving Beijing was a lot more relaxed than our arrival. Not only did we have our guide with us, but we were more familiar with the airport or at least what to expect and had a group to travel with. Our agency does allow you to travel by yourself and provide you with a guide if there wasn't a group to add on to, but I highly recommend going with a group. These are the people who are going to entertain your kid(s) when you're signing paperwork, share medication with you that you don't have, run to Pizza Hut across the street if you can't leave your room...these people are IN IT with you. We all made it through security with no problems. For some reason, Derek and I never had any issues with security but the other two families would be stopped for trivial things--things that were insignificant but scary when you can't understand what people are telling you.Once we arrived in Zhengzhou (pronounced JUNG-joe), we quickly gathered our luggage (it is an amazing amount of luggage to find and haul for six adults, two kids, and three anticipated children). Even when you pack light...it's still a lot. I even left my hair dryer at home people. I don't think you know the sacrifice that was for me. We located another fantastic guide (shout out to Tina!) and marched through the airport school children style to our transportation outside. We had some trouble with the bus that was going to take us to the hotel (located about an hour from the airport). None of us still quite know what was going on, but the police boarded the bus and escorted the driver off, and then a lot of yelling/loud talking commenced. Phone calls were made, there was a lot of waving of arms...we didn't know if we were ever going to arrive. Was it because we were American? Were we going to have to pay them off? These were the questions going through all of our minds. However, I guess (?) there was just a problem with the driver's credentials. How the police could tell that just by the bus parked and us boarding I don't know, but that's the story and we're sticking to it. While we were waiting for this to be resolved, Tina gave us the most recent updates on our children which included things like current weight, height, favorite foods (actual brands), type of formula, etc. We all poured over this information like it was gold and shared the little anecdotes about our children's personalities--friendly, extroverted, mischievous, smart, determined...we were all proud parents at that moment and yet hadn't met our kids.
We did finally make it to the (very ornate) hotel. Just check out the lobby! This one was even nicer than the last. We all had rooms near each other on the 20th floor (yikes!) but it made for some awesome views. Oh, and yes, once again, we had the super fancy and open bathroom walls, but these came with an automatic curtain plus the shower and toilet were each their own separate rooms within the bathroom. Phew! Having a bathtub was super nice for a toddler, although this one was big enough to swim in.
What was nice about this hotel was that we were right across the street from Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King that we could actually see from our room...plus it had pretty decent room service. We were pretty set for food. After grabbing some dinner (the absolute best hamburger via room service ever) we met back with our guide to do some shopping at the local Walmart. Yes, Walmarts truly are everywhere and have everything you need. We bought the few snacks that we were told toddlers liked (and actually, we liked them a lot too) and headed back to prepare for the next day.
Our gifts were prepared, our name tags were ready, and most of all, our room had a crib in it. That was what made it so real. The next day, we would have a baby in that crib. There would be three of us instead of two in the room. We would be meeting Jordan the next day! We knew people back home were praying for us and praying for him. You'd think that we wouldn't have slept well at all that night, but we did. It was probably the best nights' sleep we had in China, knowing that finally, finally things were happening. If our minds were on anything at all, it was that this little boy was about to have his entire world rocked and that we wanted it to be as smooth a transition as possible for him. We were getting ready for bed in Zhengzhou, but Jet was getting ready for bed (or already sleeping) in Beijing and was too little to understand that he would be leaving the only family he ever knew the next morning. Gotcha Day (or Family Day as we actually have started to call it recently) was just the beginning. This may seem like a weird place to end this post, but really...let's just draw out the suspense a little bit longer, shall we? |
| This picture probably says it all. |
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