THE day of our departure for our much anticipated and planned for journey to China has arrived. It has been a FULL summer project preceded by months more of planning. Neither a bit of a protracted strep infection (-Anna) nor a whopping case of poison ivy (-Anne) has deterred our travel for which we are so grateful. (Check out Zanfel, the most effective thing I've ever used for poison ivy). The major pieces of preparation are in place including establishing contact with the Yangzhou SWI (Thank you, Pat!) which includes the orphanage that cared for Anna for the first two years of her life and gave her her name, Ru Qian, that we continue to use as her middle name. Anna has put a photo album together as a gift for the orphanage. We have also had some new notecards made with Anna's art work on the fronts which we will include as part of our gift. Anna's focus of energy in preparation for this trip has been the anticipated visit to the orphanage though we all know that it is difficult to imagine what to expect exactly. We've talked about being open to seeing what we see and feeling what we feel. (Several months ago when we were coming home from Chinese class on a Saturday morning, we were driving through downtown Annapolis when Anna called out, "Mom, can we stop? There's the dress that I want to wear to the orphanage when we go to visit"! I wheeled into Mom and Dad's driveway, ascertained with them that it was OK for us to park there while we went to check out the dress, and off we went. Sure enough, there was only one left of the dress that Anna saw hanging in the window of Tara's on Randall Street, and it fit her perfectly. It's red and has butterflies outlined in sparkly gold all over it. Trying it on to show Grandma and Papa, she said, "This is what I want to feel like - American Chinese". American design of dress with Chinese appearing accent in color and motif.). Anne has predictably been up all night with last minute preparations (including an early am visit to Mom's to take her the new cards with Anna's art work and find her on a ladder in her kitchen with the cupboard open counting her "French dressings" - yes, really! Before I left, she told me that she might count her "soups"!) Anne is still tossing assembled items in the suitcase when Ross and Sheree arrive to pick us up to take us to the train station. The kitchen counter remains a mess with a mass of papers and the oven is not clean and I didn't get out the Christmas cards (2009) that I had hoped to do before we left, but we have all the necessary documents that we need including Anna's adoption paperwork, medicines, toilet paper (really!), and a synopsis of a synopsis of the history of China as well as family history information pertaining to Helen and John Chalmers (-Anne's great great grandmother's sister and brother-in-law who did missionary work in China in the mid-1800s and are buried in Hong Kong Cemetery). Reading Wild Swans by Jung Chang was particularly helpful and is what encouraged me to read an overview of the history of China aloud in the car as we drove to and from North Carolina for Sarah Day and Andrew Hendricks' wedding in late June. And, finally, after MUCH consternation, with particular encouragement from Leslie who demonstrated the assets directly, we ordered an IPad! Having a keyboard is proving especially useful. And, last but not least, I remember to check our phone messages before we leave and we listen to a sweet send off message from Abby Mei Noonan! Ready we are and we are off!
Well, sort of. Having gathered at the BWI train station, counted our bags, said our goodbyes and thanks to Ross and Sheree for driving us in 2 cars to the station at such an early hour (and given them our best wishes as they plan a wedding!), taken the train uneventfully up to the Newark, N. J. International airport, we learn that our flight #99 to Hong Kong via Continental Airlines has been delayed by hours. We end up departing 7 hours later than scheduled. It was a 16 hour flight! Even I, the one who hardly ever watches movies at all, watched 3 of them! In front of each seat, there is a screen and one has a choice of 195 movies or so. I was too uncomfortable and too tired to do anything else. (For the record, I watched "Babette's Feast", "Little Miss Sunshine", and at the urging of Anna, "How to Train Your Dragon"). There was actually ample food on the flight which also helped with passing that amount of time. Anna liked the fortune she received inside her fortune cookie: "Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change".
In Hong Kong, we encountered one more brief delay as Richard was held at the area where passports are checked and stamped: It seems that someone else with the same name is on a watch list and is being sought! (This is getting to be a predictable family problem)! We are grateful at that hour to have opted to be met by a representative of Lotus Travel, Helen, and a small bus with driver to take us to our hotel, the Marco Polo Gateway Hotel in Kowloon. By the time we turn in, it's about 3:30am or so, Friday, July 16th, and we've lost a day due to the time change, but we've launched!
Our group of seven includes Mary and John Vertiz and their daughter Becky who we met after we moved to Maryland in 2003 as we got involved in Families with Children from China gatherings and endeavors. Becky is about 6 months older than Anna. Gail Morton, wife of Anne's cousin John Morton, joins us also for this adventure. What a treat to have an "auntie" along with us! We have been so grateful to have landed at St. Margaret's Church in 2003 where our church family includes Gail and John, the Svendsen family including Julie, Kurt, Sam, Jonah, and our goddaughter Molly Rose, 3yo, adopted from Fengxin SWI, Jiangxi, China, in early 2008, and Deb and Scott Tabor, parents of Lili, 6yo, also adopted from China. Richard, Anna, and I complete our travel group. I'm planning to set up a blog to record our travels as a way of including family and friends in this adventure. Note to James and Ross: Really! : )
No comments:
Post a Comment