Journey to Carly - Day 5 - April 3, 2005
Whew - what a day! We met Echo (our International Social Services facilitator) in the lobby of the hotel at 11:30 this morning and headed to the Hong Kong airport to catch our flight to Nanning. There were approximately 20 adopting families, including 7 from our group, on the flight. You could feel the excitement and anticipation in the air. The general mood, within our travel group, is much less hyper and much more subdued as we contemplate and anticipate the big change coming our way in less than 24 hours. The flight was uneventful and we landed in Nanning around 3:30pm. We squeezed into a van and headed straight to the hotel.
Wow - to see normal, daily life here in China is really quite sobering. I can't tell you how many times today I thanked my lucky stars for all the wonderful things we enjoy in the U.S. Some of the sights we saw on the way from the airport to our hotel actually brought tears to my eyes. The city of Nanning is very large, at least by American standards. In my opinion, though, there is a great deal of poverty here. What makes me sad is that I don't think many of these people have ever known anything different, so to them, they are living the "good life". Today made me feel very small, materialistic, and quite humble. It made me realize how much we tend to take for granted in our pampered lives. The next several days will surely be an adventure for us. I think the entire group will probably be doing some soul searching as we learn more about the area where our daughters are from and the people who took care of them for the first year of their lives.
Our hotel is adequate, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it "nice". The photos on the hotel's website make it look much nicer than it actually is. We were very spoiled at the Marco Polo in Hong Kong, so again, it is very sobering to find ourselves here, at the Majestic Hotel in Nanning. We caused quite the excitement this afternoon - We had our facilitator, Echo, the maintenance man, and the technical support person from the hotel all in our room at the same time. Our room was about 90 degrees after the a/c had run for 2 hours and we couldn't get the internet to connect. Thankfully, they did their jobs well and everything is working fine now. Well, the internet is very slow, but at least we have it!
Guess what is in our room? A baby crib! Yes, that's right! It certainly makes what will happen tomorrow more of a reality. I just spent the last hour and a half unpacking all of our suitcases so that I could try to get organized for the big day. We couldn't unpack right after we got to the hotel, because we immediately headed (as a group) to the local Walmart! And what an experience that was! The next time, we will take the video camera.
Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!! The Miller family will be forever changed as of approximately 11:00am tomorrow (10:00pm Sunday night, your time)! OH MY GOD - the day is really here!!!!! Provided connections are good, I'll post pictures as soon as I can after we have Carly.
Thank you all for your thoughts, well wishes, and prayers.
Whew - what a day! We met Echo (our International Social Services facilitator) in the lobby of the hotel at 11:30 this morning and headed to the Hong Kong airport to catch our flight to Nanning. There were approximately 20 adopting families, including 7 from our group, on the flight. You could feel the excitement and anticipation in the air. The general mood, within our travel group, is much less hyper and much more subdued as we contemplate and anticipate the big change coming our way in less than 24 hours. The flight was uneventful and we landed in Nanning around 3:30pm. We squeezed into a van and headed straight to the hotel.
Wow - to see normal, daily life here in China is really quite sobering. I can't tell you how many times today I thanked my lucky stars for all the wonderful things we enjoy in the U.S. Some of the sights we saw on the way from the airport to our hotel actually brought tears to my eyes. The city of Nanning is very large, at least by American standards. In my opinion, though, there is a great deal of poverty here. What makes me sad is that I don't think many of these people have ever known anything different, so to them, they are living the "good life". Today made me feel very small, materialistic, and quite humble. It made me realize how much we tend to take for granted in our pampered lives. The next several days will surely be an adventure for us. I think the entire group will probably be doing some soul searching as we learn more about the area where our daughters are from and the people who took care of them for the first year of their lives.
Our hotel is adequate, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it "nice". The photos on the hotel's website make it look much nicer than it actually is. We were very spoiled at the Marco Polo in Hong Kong, so again, it is very sobering to find ourselves here, at the Majestic Hotel in Nanning. We caused quite the excitement this afternoon - We had our facilitator, Echo, the maintenance man, and the technical support person from the hotel all in our room at the same time. Our room was about 90 degrees after the a/c had run for 2 hours and we couldn't get the internet to connect. Thankfully, they did their jobs well and everything is working fine now. Well, the internet is very slow, but at least we have it!
Guess what is in our room? A baby crib! Yes, that's right! It certainly makes what will happen tomorrow more of a reality. I just spent the last hour and a half unpacking all of our suitcases so that I could try to get organized for the big day. We couldn't unpack right after we got to the hotel, because we immediately headed (as a group) to the local Walmart! And what an experience that was! The next time, we will take the video camera.
Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!! The Miller family will be forever changed as of approximately 11:00am tomorrow (10:00pm Sunday night, your time)! OH MY GOD - the day is really here!!!!! Provided connections are good, I'll post pictures as soon as I can after we have Carly.
Thank you all for your thoughts, well wishes, and prayers.
Echo briefing us on air travel in China:
Nanning:
In the lobby of The Majestic Hotel in Nanning:
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