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Sun. Oct 23, 2005

Journey to Caroli, Pt. 1

For at least today, I’m going to go ahead and “scoop” LeeAnn’s “Journey to Caroli” web site by placing their first diary entry and pictures here, before they’re published there. I’d asked her if she would copy me her e-mails to the person who’s making their entries, and they don’t publish on the weekend. So I will. After all, what are LeeAnn and Danny going to do to me? They’re on the other side of the planet, with Major League jet lag.

[all the photos below are linked to an enlargement]

I dropped LeeAnn and Danny off at the Atlanta airport at about 2:30pm Friday afternoon. That’s them looking all fresh and spry, with their allowed baggage. Yes, if you travel to China to pick up a child, you get one checked bag per person (suggested maximum weight, 44 pounds, but LeeAnn and Danny were about ten over apiece), and a carry-on (their maxed out backpacks). Now, cram everything two people and a nine month old child will need for ten days into those two bags and two carry-on sized backpacks.

That was 2:30pm Friday. Late last night, early this morning, LeeAnn e-mailed “Just wanted to let you know that we finally made it — it’s now 3:30 p.m. Sunday, 10/23. I believe it’s 3:30 a.m. for you on Sunday also. We’re 12 hours ahead of you. Anyway, we checked in our room about half hour ago [...] Needless to say, we are exhausted — I don’t think I’ve ever felt this kind of tired before.”

Let’s do the math on that. Begin your trip at the Atlanta airport at 2:30pm Friday, and 36.5 hours later, you check into your hotel room in China. And you better collect yourself, because 18 hours after your arrival, your child will be in your arms.

Later, LeeAnn sent what will be there first entry in their diary. Her words and pictures follow (she may have even let Danny help, and I may have “helped” the photos a bit):

We are finally here.

The flight from Atlanta to LA then to Guangzhou was uneventful (but extremely long) except for meeting the Walls, our traveling/adopting companions from California. He is a surgeon and she is a speech pathologist. They have a daughter who is very excited about becoming a big sister.

When we arrived in Guangzhou, we met our guide Sylvia. Thank goodness she was there. I can’t imagine getting to our flight to Fuzhou on time without her help. The travel time to Fuzhou was only an hour and a half, but they fed us a big meal anyway. Real food served hot on a plane. Yep, this isn’t the US of A.

Our hotel is about an hour from the airport. The road looks flat – but it isn’t. Six Flags amusement park could learn a few tricks from the guys that put this pavement down. I tried taking pictures during the drive, but they all turned out very blurry. I suppose that if you jumped around while looking at them they might come into focus, but I’m tired now and that experiment will have to wait.

I couldn’t help but notice the differences in driving habits between America and China. We were entertained by people pulling out into traffic without looking first, drivers suddenly slowing down and doing dangerous u-turns, and pedestrians wandering into traffic trying to find a way to cross the road. But that was in Atlanta on the way to the airport. Chinese do all of those things too except that they have raised the use of the car horn to a high art. I mean it. I have never heard so much honking from so little traffic. And unlike US drivers, these guys do not use the horn in anger. Instead there is some sort of unofficial car horn language here. Maybe a tooting Morse Code would be a better description. After much white knuckled observation I have managed to simplify the Chinese Audio Rapport (CAR) into the following.

One toot – “Hey dude, if you continue your projected path we will collide.”

Two toots – “Hey dude, didn’t ya hear the first toot.”

One short toot followed by one long one – “Hey man, wanna play chicken?”

Two long toots – “I’m coming through and under no circumstance will I slow down.”

One long toot followed by screeching tires – “OK, I was bluffing.”

One really short toot – just the driver enjoying his horn.

Tomorrow, Monday, 10/24, is our Gotcha Day. We are excited and very nervous. Thankfully we are surrounded by experience. I am sure we will lean on it early and often.