Heading Out!

Our journey to adopt the future Annie began on Wednesday, May 10th 2006 in Norwalk, CT. This was the day we had been waiting for 18 months. Now, it was finally here. We were on a 3:00 PM flight to Hong Kong, but our day began well before that. In keeping with the tradition established when we went to adopt our first Chinese daughter, Emma, we woke up early and went to breakfast at our favorite local diner, Orem's. Then, still keeping with tradition (if a tradition can be established after doing something only once!), we stopped by Our Lady of Assumption Church in Westport, CT to ask for God's blessing and to thank Him for this incredible gift before we headed out on this amazing, emotional journey. The last step in the tradition, which, admittedly, is decidedly less sacred and profound than the second step, was to stop by Starbucks for a celebratory frappuccino and take a few minutes to marvel at what was about to take place.

This process being completed, we went home, made sure everything was packed and that all paperwork (3 duplicate sets of it, stored in 3 separate locations to guard against loss or misplacement) was in order. At 10:30, our car showed up to take us to Newark Airport for our 16 hour flight to Hong Kong. Before we left, we had the driver take our picture as we held a picture of Annie. We had the same sort of picture taken by our driver two and a half years ago when we were on our way out to get Emma. This photo is included to the right.

The flight, as expected, was a bit on the longish side, and we had ample opportunity to age gracefully, inching ever closer to social security (advice: if anyone suggests you watch the movie Underworld on a long international flight, be firm and open a good book as quickly as possible). We landed 16 1/2 hours later and were amazed at the efficiency of Hong Kong's airport. We got our bags, made it through customs and immigration, and found our driver (reserved online via our hotel, The Sheraton Hong Kong) in about 15 minutes total. Before we knew it, we were escorted to a wonderfully air-conditioned Mercedes with a fantastically friendly and professional driver who spoke perfect English. We arrived at our hotel 30 minutes later, and were swarmed by a team of staffers who unloaded our bags, gave us a claim check, and politely directed us to the check-in counter. The level of service here is unbelievable...the entire American service industry could learn a great deal from these folks.

After getting our bags 5 minutes later and making sure our Internet connections and mobile phones worked, we headed down to one of the hotel's many excellent restaurants for a quick bite, went back upstairs for some quick showers, and hit the sack at about 11:00 for some much needed rest. Our journey had begun and, little by little, we were inching closer to Annie. We are scheduled to meet her on May 16th in Nanning, and we just got 8,061 miles closer to her. For now, though, we plan to spend the weekend in Hong Kong resting, adjusting, and anticipating. And now, we're off to our first day in Hong Kong. More on that in our next post!