Susanna's Journey: March 2005

We're here

Sorry its taken me so long to post. We got into China yesterday at about noon. The flights went well, although I was very glad to get off the last flight for the day. The good news is we made it! The bad news is that our luggage didn't. Our guide went back to check on it last night and it hadn't turned up yet. But we do have travel insurance and it covers our luggage. Also good news, is since it seems to happen often the 7-11 across the street from our hotel carries socks and underwear. (Sorry that's probably more than you need to know. LOL) The trip from the airport to the hotel was kind of a blur, but it was so fascinating to see China. Our guide, Wendy was telling us that there are 10 million people living in Guangzhou. We checked into our hotel yesterday afternoon and then went out exploring a bit on Shamian Island. Then we met two couples from our travel group and had drinks and supper with them. We went to this fabulous Thai food restaurant called the Cow and Bridge. It was really good. It's been raining most of the time since we've gotten here. We walked back from the Thai place and got drenched but it was a warm rain and actually felt pretty good. We were in bed by 7:45 last night and slept well until about 2. Got up for a few hours and then slept some more. We had a wonderful breakfast buffet at our hotel this morning. We're going to be spoiled when we get home. No one to make breakfast for us, no one to take our plates before the last bite of food gets into our mouths and no one to push the elevator buttons for us. Well, that's about all for now. We meet our guide at 10:30 this morning to do a walking tour of Shamian Island and to buy baby supplies. Guess I'll be buying a little bit more than everyone else, since most of Susanna's stuff is in the luggage. Then at 2:30 this afternoon, we travel into GZ to meet our babies. :-) Only a few more hours.

Catherine

4 more days.

The Countdown has started.

Today we did all of our last minute errands. Jimmy picked up the money from the bank, finished his route (except for one stop we need to make on the way to Whidbey on Sunday morning) and is now on his way home. I finished putting our paperwork together, reconfirmed our flights, and had our last call from our agency before we leave. I have most of the packing done and am working my way through the last of the laundry. Tomorrow is our last full day at home and it will be a busy one. On Sunday we will spend the day with family and then on Monday afternoon, we will make our way to the Seattle airport. We take off for San Francisco at 7:00 pm, spend a few hours there before getting on our 14 hour flight to Hong Kong at midnight. Then from Hong Kong, we have a 50 minute flight to Guangzhou (formally Canton). Somewhere in there we will cross the international dateline, which skips us ahead a day and we arrive in China at 11 in the morning on March 30. We will be met by our agency guide, Wendy at the airport, who will then take us to our hotel, the White Swan hotel. We get to meet the other couples in our travel group that night and more importantly, we get to meet our daughter the next day at 1:00 pm (which would be 9:00 pm for those of you on the west coast).

5 more days.

Susanna

Yesterday we were given an incredible gift. A woman who I met online was in China adopting an older child and she got to visit the orphanage. While she was there she asked about my baby and Susanna was brought to her and she spent 10 minutes holding her. She got some pictures that she's going to send me and said that she is very tiny but beautiful. It was such a gift. I can't wait to hold her myself. 6 more days.

Catherine

Susanna Michal MeiLan Fraser

Tickets and visas

Yesterday, our tickets came in the morning via Fed Ex and our visas came in the afternoon via UPS. We're waiting on our final itinerary to come in the morning from our agency and then we'll be good to go. We'll be leaving Moses Lake either Saturday night or Sunday to take the boys to Whidbey and we'll spend Easter there, then will be flying out on Monday from Seattle.

Consulate Appointment

We heard from WACAP (our agency) that we have a verbal confirmation of our consulate appointment. Last night, WACAP called the US consulate in Guangzhou to ask if we'd gotten one yet and they were told that we were scheduled for April 6. WACAP doesn't have the paperwork for this yet, but has told us to go ahead and look for plane tickets. They don't want us to purchase them until they get the final paperwork, which they are hoping to get tomorrow morning.

I have plane tickets on hold for a flight that leaves March 28 (Susanna's first birthday) and lands in Guangzhou on March 30 at 11:05 am, after first giving us a tour of the San Francisco airport and also the Hong Kong airport. :-) We'll be flying Cathay Pacific. Everything else is booked. We will have Susanna in our arms on March 31st, two weeks from today. We will leave Guangzhou to come home April 8.

Catherine

We have travel approval.

Susanna's Journey

We finally got the call this morning that China has given us approval to travel to go get Susanna. Now we are waiting for our agency to contact the US consulate in Guangzhou, China to get a consulate appointment for us. This appointment will be the last thing that we will need to do on our trip to China. Once we get this appointment, we're hoping to have it by Wednesday, then our agency will tell us when we need to be in China to begin the final adoption process and then we can book our tickets. Depending on when the consulate appointment is, we could find ourselves on a plane to China as early as the end of next week. We're pretty excited and are looking forward to possibly spending Easter in China. The boys are looking forward to spending time with Gran and Papa while we're gone.

Now we are focusing on finishing our packing, getting all our paperwork together and waiting for our passports to come back from the Chinese consulate with visa stamps. We're going to China!

Catherine