Coming Home: The trip that every adoptive parent begins to long for (but simultaneously fear) a day or so into Guangzhou. (if not sooner. :-))
If you will recall, our home-ward trip was changed because of the Chinese Government/Military celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the victory in WWII. (Some have found this puzzling, not thinking of China as playing a role, but they were occupied and oppressed by the Japanese during that time period and were quite involved.) But I digress.....
We got the Visa packet at about 4:30PM last Wednesday, Guangzhou time. This packet, we would hand, un-opened, to the US Immigration Agents in the Boston Airport.
We then rode through rush-hour traffic to the Guangzhou airport to check in for you 9:25PM flight to Beijing. I was a little apprehensive about the time spent in the airport with Levi past his bed-time, but all went smoothly. After getting through security, we had a dinner of noodles and dumplings. At the gate, we pulled out the playdough to help pass some time.
But we still had an hour to kill. So.....Levi and I took a long walk. And found:
Lychee Fruit! Twigs and all. This was PERFECT. It takes a little while to peel off the tough, kiwi-like skin, eat the fruit and spit out the pit. These, you may recall, were some of the things that came in The Pink Bag. They were a hit, the time went swiftly til boarding.
On the plane, Levi went two-for-two sleeping from take-off to touchdown. What would this mean for the BIG flight the next day?
We got into Beijing around 12:30AM. (With Levi sound asleep Joe and I got to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron the whole flight! :-)) Now we had to find our shuttle to our hotel. This took us about an hour. Their shuttle didn't come to our terminal. When we finally figured this out, we had a bit of trouble finding our way to the right terminal. This search involved a wrong turn and long walk outside the airport to a dark spot in the road with all our bags on a cart. Feeling a little "sketched out" we went back the way we came and got better directions. We got checked in and were all asleep a little after 2:30AM. This was not exactly a great way to start our home-ward trip.
We slept until about 8:30am, when I woke the boys up to get some breakfast. We'd have loved to have slept much longer. Fed and packed again, we were off by shuttle back to the airport.
It was a great joy to walk out of the hotel and see clear blue skies for the first time in 13 days.
We took the shuttle to terminal three, unloaded all our stuff, loaded it all onto a cart, and made our way to the third floor for checkin only to discover......we were at the wrong terminal. ugh. This was the first of several hang-ups and annoyances along the way to boarding our flight. We picked the checkin line whose conveyor belt broke, causing us to stand in one place for half an hour. Then, gabe's gift got flagged (a small souvenir sword) in the checked luggage and I had to climb behind the desk, open the suit-case and identify the offending object. Then I almost left my phone (gasp) at the counter. Then we waited in line for immigration, forgetting to fill out the little immigration card. Then we forget to fill out one per person. Then we had to unpack my entire back-pack to get to my camera (which no-one cared about in the previous four flights.) Then we forgot to dump Levi's water. and so on.....oy. vey. . Not awful. But definitely not smooth. Thankfully, we had a cushion of time. At the gate, we ate the last of the lychee fruit and drank the last of our water since, oddly, you couldn't bring water on the plane--even after security. Finally, we boarded a standing room only bus and waited....and waited....and waited....and sweat and sweat and sweat until it was packed enough to drive down the tarmac to our awaiting plane. Odd to board in the middle of the tarmac.
Somewhere along the way, I hear the words that strike terror into the hearts of any parent trapped by circumstances and kept far from any bathroom: "Niao-Niao." (announcing to me that he has to "pee-pee") You are Kidding, right? I look down at the earnest face. I hear again: "Niao-Niao" spoken with greater urgency. I try to communicate the hopelessness of our situation. I look frantically to see if there's some miracle toilet in the corner of our bus (though how we'd get to it through the wall of sardine-like people, I have no clue.) Nothing. "NIAO-NIAO" he says with great urgency and a little anger. Again, I try to communicate that he'll have to wait. And wait he did. As we unloaded. As we handed off the stroller. As we waited to climb the stairs and make the long walk to our seats, as I dumped my laptop bag (with all our important papers, passports, etc.) and backpack with Joe and hustled back to the rear airplane lavatory.....Only to find it locked. (Of COURSE it is.) Thankfully, I flag down a flight attendant who checks to see if it's occupied (it's not) then unlocks the door and lets us in.
It's been a long time since I've had to share an airport lavatory with a little person. Do you know how impossibly SMALL they are?! Mild travel disaster averted, we got settled in our seats and took off, where-upon Levi......fell asleep. YES!
After about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it was time for ME to Niao-niao. I went back and got in line. Finally, I'm next. But I look up and see Joseph frantically signalling to me that LEVI has to niao-niao. (of course he does.) But there is simply no way I can forfeit my place in line and take care of that. Really. I've been waiting a while. I really can't. I signal Joseph to take him to the green-lighted lavatory in the front of our section. By the time I make it back....I find Levi still in his seat and....wet. (and isn't it great that airport seats are cloth fabric that absorb liquid?!) Only ten hours to go and his seat is wet and I'm already into the first of three back-up outfits I have along. I had him sit on the airplane blanket still in plastic.
[Edit: to be clear...Joe was not at fault in the above incident. By the time Joe went into action.....the line at the previously unoccupied lavatory was three deep. Just. like. that.]
Thankfully the rest of the trip was uneventful. Levi was fantastic. He played with play-dough for quite a while. Then spent even more time playing with all the papers and cards and vomit bag in his seat-back compartment. He stayed up waaaaaaay too late but just couldn't sleep until the last four hours of the flight.
You can't really ask for more than sleeping half the flight. (And I didn't even slip him the benadryl!) ;-)
Landing in Boston, Levi was a US Citizen. We waded through the lines of Immigration, waited for his papers to be processed in a "holding room" with 30 or so other immigrants, got our luggage, went through customs, changed into clean clothes and...finally! Saw family.
Yes, Deb, that is definitely relief on my face. (Thanks again for driving and for this picture!) My brother and his family also came to welcome us back to the US of A. What a blessing!
