October 14, 2010 Visa/Chengdu
Last night I placed Kai in his crib with a bottle. He is always good at going to sleep so long as he gets his bottle. I could feel him looking at me, so I rolled over and his little hand was between the slats. I touched his hand and he gripped my finger until he fell asleep. It was so heartwarming. What a sweet ending to a hard day.
This morning we ate breakfast with some other families. Many families are here now because they have adopted from this province, Guangdong. This is their first week with their children, and it is interesting to see how timid some of them are. Kai was much quieter than he is now, but he was never timid at all. He was easy to entertain and please. Now he expects more and more of us, and we have to keep him busy! I see some of the behaviors of the new parents, and it reminds me of the yahoo groups I belong to. I just go with the flow.
We are starting to pack our bags because we will be on our way to our next destination, Chengdu. We finish packing and take Kai down to the famous red couch for photos. He was adorable! We checked out of the hotel at 2 PM to get our visa and a brown envelope that is only allowed to be opened by customs when we return to the states. We arrive at 2:30 and have to drive around for 30 minutes because the packages were not ready until 3:00. Kai only got a small nap, and he has grown more inpatient with riding in cars.
After we get the visa and brown envelope, we go to the airport to catch our flight that is supposed to take off at 5:30. We were just in the weight limit of 20 kg per ticket for checked baggage. We were able to keep our stroller and check it in at the gate. Thank goodness, because we have heavy carryon bags! I am glad they don’t weigh those! We grab a quick dinner and waste time while waiting for our flight, only to find out that it is delayed until 6:30 PM.
We start to board at 6:05 PM on a fully booked flight, and Kai is very well behaved. Finally, around 7:25, we get permission to take off. Poor Kai! He does not like confined spaces, and neither do his parents. We had to break out all the toys and snacks before we even left the ground. Kai did not want his seat belt on at all. He started to fuss a bit so I just took it off him. I am not sure that he would even survive if we had some sort of accident and my weight was behind him. Anyhow, he did really well for his first flight and if it is any indication of how he will be on the flight home, then we are going to have to keep him really busy. UGH!
Finally, we land in Chengdu, Sichuan around 9:40 PM, well over an hour late. We are picked up from the airport by our guide, Susie, and it is another 40-50 minutes to the hotel. Thank goodness Kai fell asleep on me on the way to our hotel.
Chengdu looks different then the other places we have been. Neon lights light up bridges and overpasses. Neon lights are everywhere. The housing looks similar to Changsha.
Our guide Susie said that from January until now, only 58 adoptions have taken place in Sichuan. She also stated that Hunan probably has 58 adoptions in 2 weeks. That is probably a bit dramatic, but only 58 adoptions in the past 10 months, which seems so low. In other words, we are going to look out of place here. We are used to it by now. :)
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