We got up this morning, ate breakfast, then went to church. Today we sang 2 songs in Chinese (one was the same as last week. I'm impressed with myself for recognizing it.) We also sang I Exalt Thee and Victory Chant. As the sermon started, Elijah became very unhappy with his lot in life. We had to leave the service to go to the courtyard.
Out in the courtyard, we got into some neat conversations. One was with a mom from Texas, a fellow believer who is here getting child #6. She is adopting a 2.5 yo boy with missing fingers. The rest were local people who wanted to know where we were from and how we got a boy. One did not seem to know anything about adoption. At least one said she was a Christian. It continues to be hard at times to talk to these people since our lives and culture are so different from theirs. When they asked how many children we have and we responded three, she commented that our house would be very crowded. I didn't want to tell her that we have 4 bedrooms and a big yard. Another couple here was asked a similar questions: How many rooms does your house have. He answered 3. She said, "Oh, very big." He clarified, "That is bedrooms, not just rooms." She said they had something like 8 people living in 2 rooms.
After church, we walked over to the nearby McDonald's for lunch. We completely corrupted Elijah by feeding him 3 chicken nuggets, french fries, and some ice cream. The burgers are not quite the same here, but the fries are identical. When my mom took Kailey and Justin before they left, Kailey ate 10 chicken nuggets and Justin had 8. Kailey announced that while they are at my parents' house, she does not want to eat out at all! Nana has to cook every single meal. Well, maybe halfway through the week they could go out to get some Sesame Chicken. There certainly isn't any of that dish here!
They have returned safely to the US. Here are the emails they sent us upon arrival at my folks' house:
From Kailey
We got back a little bit ago. I slept a whole lot on the plane [note from Nana – about 5 hours]. On the second plane, I looked out the window the whole time. It only seemed like it took a little while. On the big plane from China, Hannah from the ballet school was sitting in the nest section. I did not see here until we got to the airport in Chicago. I thought “that looks like the girl from my ballet school.” When she looked at me, I waved and she waved back. We kept seeing her and her family in the airport. Well, got to go to bed.
From Justin:
I love you mommy. I will see you in a week.
So, the bus from Guangzhou was not as advertised. We did all have to leave the bus to go through customs and immigration – that meant hauling all of our stuff ( no carts) through an unbelievably crowded and confusing immigration processing center, then coming out the other side to find that our next transportation was in a seven person van with two more travelers and all of their luggage. That whole process took 45 minutes and we barely made the plane. It was extremely frustrating – and we were very worried about missing the plane,
I have sent you info about sleeping in the airport in Hong Kong – you may want to explore this more. I googled hong kong airport sleep. I think your only choice is to go to Hong Kong Friday night. I am exhausted – more tomorrow.
******
We had already decided to take the train back to Hong Kong Friday night and stay at a hotel there. We have our reservations and will take the MTR train to the airport on Saturday. We should be home Saturday between 9-10 pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment