Traveling to Beijing

Everyone who has done this trip has told me to pack as little as possible. That is so hard to do when you’re packing not only for yourself, but for a 3-year-old and an 8-month-old. What do you leave out?

We ended up checking one bag. One very large bag. However, it’s full of things we won’t come home with, like diapers (for Lucy at night, since the American ones are supposedly much more absorbent than Chinese diapers), Pull-Ups (for Hannah at night), and gifts for the officials. At least we will have room to bring home a suitcase full of things we don’t need.

We carried on everything else. Not an easy task with a pre-schooler. But we have our Adoption Doula/Sherpa/Videographer with us. My cousin Marian left her two teenage boys and husband at home to join us, and be our third set of hands. Always outnumber the children. She has been such a trooper and Hannah adores her. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure Hannah would miss me if I weren’t here.

We left on Monday at 12 Noon. We were travel nerds, and arrived the recommended three hours prior to departure. The only other people on our flight to arrive that early was another adoption family in our travel group. I’m glad to know they are travel nerds too. Hannah immediately spilled water on herself as we walked into the airport, which required us to take off her pants. She ran around the airport for 2 hours in her underwear and had a grand time.

The flight from Portland to Tokyo was LONG. It was a very full flight as well, so we had no room to spread out. It was a long flight. Thankfully, the plane we were on has individual ‘Entertainment Units’ in each seat, so that helped to pass the time. It was a long flight. Hannah did amazingly well, but did ask to go home a couple of times. The only time she fell asleep was during the landing. Go figure. Did I mention the flight was long?

We arrived in Tokyo around 10:30 PM Portland time (3:30 PM Tokyo time). We had just under 2 hours for a layover. We were all pretty zoned out by then, so headed straight for coffee. No Starbucks here (surprisingly), but found a café that made amazing ‘American’ coffee. I spent 1750 Yen on 3 coffees, 2 waters, and some crackers. I have no idea how much that was in US dollars since I used a credit card. Hmmmm…….

We’re back on another plane now, headed for Beijing. Hannah fell asleep during the takeoff this time, and has been sleeping soundly ever since. It’s 4:00 AM Portland time. In two hours, we will have been awake for 24 hours. We arrive in Beijing at 8:45 PM, local time (5:45 AM Portland time). Can I go to sleep now?

PS – probably no pictures until Nanchang on Sunday. We have a very slow dial-up connection here in Beijing. I’ll try to get picture up as soon as possible.

Getting ready to travel

We finally got our travel dates last Tuesday. We leave on November 28, and return on December 16. 18 days. Wow! We fly directly out of Portland to Tokyo, then on to Beijing. We are doing a four day tour of Beijing. Then we'll fly to Nanchang, which is the capital of the Jiangxi province where Lucy is. The next day, we get Lucy. It's called 'Gotcha Day' in the adoption community. I have never been able to wrap my arms around that phrase. For some reason, it just sounds so possessive. Like the person on the other end has no say in the matter. I guess that is true, really. But still...

Hannah is really talking about her Mei Mei a lot. Her new thing is, when she's mad at Roger or me, to say "you're not my friend anymore." Well, she said it at one point today (to me), then looked at me, and said, "but I love Lucy a lot." My heart melted.

List, lists, and more lists. That's what my life is all about right now. Roger and I both have so much to do. What we don't get done will still be here when we get back.

We leave two weeks from tomorrow. So hard to believe it's almost here. Lucy will be home before Christmas.