catching up!

Finally we have some down time - tomorrow is meeting Lily Naal day. I will try to post some of the pictures from this last wek

Laibin city

A visit to Laibin and Aiying's orphanage

on the drive their. It is nice that they are mostly playing but sometimes fights erupt. "Umm...just like Chinese children " our guide says.

outside the orphanage gate. they rushed to see Aiying. The guard asked for our passports and our guide said "Do you read English" "I don't think so!"

They were thrilled that Ying still understands some Manadrin and spoke to them with a "Laibin accent"(!?)

Being fussed over and given gifts of a beautiful lace scarf and a sweet kitten purse.

I brought an album filled with pictures of the kids adopted from the orphanage and their lives now. there were many letters from the kids.

The best present you can bring an orphanage staff.

The orphanage garden.

Ying and her shopping mentor and buddy! They went shopping together even when Ying was in foster care.

across the street from the Children's Hospital where Ying was found. (In front of the Government Medical Workers apts)

Surprised when a food vendor started sharing information about a baby being left in front of her seven years ago. Usually they were left in front of the hospital. across the street. Beautiful baby girl, nice quality blankets. "Doesn't remember" if man or woman left her.

Happy girl- in her hometown.

Laibin City is under huge construction. it just became a city of 1.5 million.

An emotionally draining day. We spent the evening in the bar at the Majestic watching a wedding as it happened. Had to love the pink tie and tux on the groom! Very cute!

Looking out our room window. The Li River is just beyond the trees.

one of the hotel's puppies

more puppies!

Ying enjoying her jasmine tea.

 Outside the hotel, the trees are still filled with Chinese New Year decorations.

 The snack bag from Xixi containing all Aiying's favorite treats!

 We went to a rural village. This is their water source. A hand pump and bucket.

Heather pumped water for the family to prepare lunch

we are here

 SO excited to arrive at the airport,

 enjoying  "3rd class"

 We are in Hong Kong

 CHINA! The girls were too busy looking at the sites to focus on the camera.
Express VPm has been kicking me off for days but Louis and Mike told me some tricks to it that they use in China so I am going to blog while I can!

2-11-12 disappeared as we crossed the International dateline. We will get it back when we come home

The flight has been pretty smooth, once we got on. Heather really disliked the waiting to board until last but is pleased to learn that this means we will be among the first off the plane.  The girls are enjoying their own TV screens filled with movies that they haven’t seen yet in the theatre, a menu of Chinese food, seaweed rice noodles every time they request and a package of puzzles and origami paper from the airline.

“This is pretty good for 3^rd class”, says Heather!

Once boarded, we had a long delay as a young man took his seat and promptly became what appeared to be “comatose”. The plane was held at the gate and medical care was summoned, The paramedics managed to wake him up but he was greatly dismayed to learn that he would not be flying to China tonight. Lesson noted, do not take your sleeping pills too far in advance or mix with alcohol. So we are now concerned that we will miss our connection from Hong Kong to Guangzhou as we only had a 2 hour window and we are 1.5 hours behind schedule.

The girls have only slept about 4 hours out of the last 12 hours of this 14-hour flight. They have eaten their weight in noodles, watched movies and read. They have been great so far (but I wish they would sleep!) I hope they can hold it together for the upcoming two flights. If we make our connections, we will arrive in Guilin at 3 pm China time.  (20 hours after we left Fort Bragg)

We made our connecting flight thanks to the Chinese skill of organization and efficiency.  As we disembarked from the plane, we were greeted by what looked like a young rock star holding a sign saying “Guangzhou”. We went up to him to ask questions on how to make our next connection and he quickly slapped color coded and numbered stickers on us and put us in a group of twenty +, very late, Guangzhou bound passengers. He reminded me of a young, well-dressed Sheep herder.

He quickly rounded us up, moving us at a quick trot, stopping to circle around us frequently to “pack us in tightly”. He then proceeded to herd us down two escalators, out to a very fast “subway train”, into another building up 4 flights of an elevator, to the security checkpoint.  All the while he circled, yelled in 4 languages, and rounded up any strays. 

At security, we pulled out laptops and stripped quickly, he pointed us to the door outside security that would take us to bus that would take us to our departing gate. He yelled at us from behind the security checkpoint, “Stay together! Stay together! Do not lose sight of each other!”

We waved goodbye and fastened on to a woman, in an orange SF jacket with the correct color sticker, and crowded into the next bus with her. We followed her up another few flights of stairs and around corners to the gate where they were holding the plane…all in an amazing 20 minutes from landing.

Guangzhou: On arrival the girls were exhausted. Happily Mr. Zhuang was there to pick up the bag full of “no-no” arm restraints for the cleft trip in April. It was so nice to get rid of some of the luggage. We will get emptier with each stop we make!

He took one look at the tired girls and our probably red eyes and decided that he needed to get us to our next gate. He ignored us telling him that we were fine and had 4 hours to figure it out. He walked us through the airport to our next Airline check in. This was much appreciated, in hindsight, as it was on the opposite end of the airport.

We then proceeded to buy $10 USD cups of coffee, juice and bowls of noodles. It is not easy to try to figure out exchange rates when you are exhausted. 

It is 8PM in the USA and morning here. We will try to stay awake until 8pm China time.

We arrive in Guilin at 3pm and will be met by Xixi and Bobo. It will be hard not to crawl in bed but the best way to get over the time change is stay up until a normal bedtime.

The girls have done great with very little complaining and lots of excitement.  But I am sure they will be glad when we are done with planes for today.

We have arrived in Guilin and the long awaited race between Heather and Baobao will have to wait! Here they are on the hour long ride to Yangshuo. They were happy to see but both exhausted. Baobao goes to boarding school and just got home. Heather has been basically awake for 24 hours.

Aiying woke up as the plane was descending into Guilin, She spotted the impossible tall rounded mountains and rivers intertwining through them and shouted "We are here! We are here! I am home!" Her eyes have not stopped sparking and she is watching everything outside the windows.

Xixi brought her a huge bag of her favorite Chinese treat. Fish oil oreos, rice shrimp crackers, fresh hot spicy peanuts etc. It was fun to watch her plow through it. Her favorite. Seafood bubble gum. Both Heather and Aiying love being with people who remember them as babies. Our guide, Bob, is Xixi's nephew. Bob (Bobo) was 13 when we adopted Heather and 16 when we adopted Ying. They treat him just like Willie. Baobao demonstrated that she jumps all over him and teases him too.

The girls wete in bed and asleep by 5 pm!