Hardee Hangzhou Culture 101 - Lesson 1

It is 5:30 in the morning and after sleeping for 10 hours we are up . . . so I thought I'd share some of what we've seen thus far. If you are following just to keep up on our adoption; come back tomorrow. :) Otherwise: enjoy. The number one "rule of thumb" here is: if there is a gap take it. This applies in many situations. At the airport (Guangzhou) we waited for a tram to wiz us to our terminal clearly the first ones there; however when the tram showed up suddenly it was full of people and we were scrambling to find 6 seats. Take it quick or loose it. Driving to our hotel, it was marveling (white knuckles!)how our driver slung in and out of traffic--between & behind. Lines on the street are just suggestions. All while bumping along seat belt-less. :) Our guide walked us (Nonna, the kids and I) to the grocery store (makes Wal-Mart look small; it had everything) and left us to shop because she had some banking to do. While checking out, a lady kindly bumped me forward because we had gaps between us (someone could very well cut into our line). So we were on our own for the trek back. Again, we now understand why people suggest to find people and walk with them. If you are not tight enough to them, bikes, motor bikes, and motor scooters will wiz between you (they don't have to follow signal lights). It was somethings else to watch the people who didn't wait for the signal to turn run across the street dodging buses, cars, etc. I love the moms roaring around on bikes and motor bikes with their baby bouncing along in a seat behind them (no seat belts). ~Eliza

IN CHINA!!!!!

Whew! Thirty-some hours later, three plane flights, and a wild ride into the city of Hangzhou and we're settled into our hotel rooms.

The kids were great travelers and survived our looooong night on the flight over--they fed us dinner at 1:00am CA time and then put us to sleep. Josiah was a hoot to watch last night: laughing his head off over the "Three Stooges Movie" (a movie which we enjoyed on a continuous loop again and again and again) and enjoying opening his dinner packages (um, yeah this boy is a night owl!). After a 10 hour time of "night" we pretended to be ready for breakfast. After landing in Guangzhou we made our way through customs (many lines to stand in but all went smoothly) an onto our last flight to Hangzhou. Our guide recognized us through the glass wall as we walked toward baggage claim and soon we were on the 40 minute drive into the city to our hotel. Our driver excellently maneuvered the van through traffic and into places that weren't there before as our guide gave us some historical background on Hangzhou and we soon arrived (pulling up on the sidewalk in front) at our hotel. My favorite traffic observation was a man on a bicycle pulling a (around 10ish) girl skating on roller blades through traffic; nice. The outlying city is smog covered but has patches of beauty: gardens or small farms. Our hotel--quite in the middle of CITY-- rooms are clean, lovely and small :) (the bed are even smaller). We just ventured out; exchanged some money and walked down the street to a little store to buy water. Our guide pointed the way to West Lake (watch for traffic she warned) so we're gonna be brave a take a walk down there this afternoon: the goal is to stay up all afternoon so we can get on track with China time. Boy will it be great to sleep FLAT tonight! Tomorrow the plan is to tour Hangzhou and look for SongLian's finding-spot. Our gotcha moment will be Monday at 9:00AM. :)We are praising God for 3 smooth, safe flights and being all settled in IN THE SAME CITY AS SONGLIAN. Those blown kisses don't have nearly so far to fly tonight! :) Thanks for following--we are SO very grateful for your support & prayer. Keep them up!

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and 2 more flights to go! So far, the kids have loved flying! Thanks to Captain E, Rainman, & CJ for a great flight from Reno to LAX. We got to go to the front of the check in line for our flight to China, since our luggage was already checked in at Reno. Now we are sitting at our gate, watching them run our plan through it's mechanic checks. Apparently, this flight goes back and forth from Guanzhou to LAX over & over. The gate attendant told us if we were returning on this airline we would get to fly on a brand new Aerobus 380. Oh well. here's some pics of the kids with our 1st flight crew after their very first plane trip. (the kids, not the flight crew)

1-1/2 hours till boarding and we'll be China bound! :-)