We're Here...!

Well, we made it to Hong Kong. The 14.5 hour flight really wasn’t that bad. Bayard enjoyed a couple hours of Dora the Explorer and Little Einsteins and then slept for about 6 hours. We ate a few times—Bayard was given special “kid’s meal” and it was clearly geared for the “American kid”…mac and cheese, corn dogs, fish sticks and fries, jello, and a Lilo and Stitch backpack with various toys inside! Pretty funny.

The Hong Kong airport is new and HUGE!!!!! Very orderly. Customs went quickly. Then we walked out into the sea of mostly Asian faces with signs calling to those they were meeting. We were greeted by two lovely Chinese women with a huge sign with our adoption agency name on it. It started to get a bit more real at that point. We were the first of 3 families to arrive in that wave of our travel group. The other two came in shortly after us. Bayard made fast friends with Joanne, one of our guides and walked with her through the crowded airport while Travis and I wrangled our bags to the bus. We were off to our hotel.

A 16 hour time difference is a big deal. We are still working on adjusting. We are all pretty much awake at 3-4 am HK time. Bayard is such a trooper! The time thing will get better I am sure.

We’re staying at the Regal Kowloon Hotel and its been pretty nice. The food has been good, lots of different Chinese dishes to try and also some western stuff as well to fill in the gaps. We had a big lunch with the travel group yesterday, Chinese family style with lots of tasty dim sum.

Most of yesterday (Friday) was taken up by the required HK “tour.” A somewhat painful bus ride through the windy and congested streets of HK with the rest of our tour group (8 families in all). For those of us (Tracey) prone to motion sickness, well, it was even more painful. Lots of stops at shopping areas and a decent amount of encouragement to spend some dollars. It gave us an opportunity to get to know our group a bit better and Bayard has made great friends with a 5 year old little girl named Sage who is here to meet her mei-mei (little sister) as well. She was adopted from China 3 years ago. She is adorable and a good match for Bayard. They have been holding hands and chatting all around HK. Our group is full of really nice families who seem to be pretty easy going.

Its been good to have a gradual adjustment to Asia here in HK, still lots of English and western stuff. Our flight to Guiyang is at 6pm this evening, we’ll see how different things are in PRC.

Tomorrow we meet Amelia!