Hong Kong Bound

So the day has finally come and we are almost done in China. We only have to get Emerson's visa and head south to Hong Kong. The day began like most with breakfast (better enjoy the last round of the buffet) and a trip back to the room. The only item other than final packing today is to eat lunch at Lucy's on Shamain Island. This is a restaurant well known to many adoption families as it is close to the White Swan hotel and we've read about it many times. We get all of our stuff packed and are surprised it all fits in the suitcases and that they are all under weight. Not that the weight matters today as we're bussing it down to Hong Kong. Before we went to breakfast, one of of our guides called us and said that they had overbooked the bus and that they were arranging a van to take our family to Hong Kong. Given Emerson's behavior in cars and stuff, this might be a blessing, especially for the rest of the families. :). We don't really have an option so we agree and in what we are learning is typical Chinese style of doing business (similar to the Indian style I deal with all of the time at work and hate) he mentions that it'll cost us extra. Nice doing business with you buddy. We agree to pay mostly because even with paying for the van is more out of pocket it actually is cheaper and faster than riding the bus with everyone else. We originally were going to take the bus to the Hong Kong airport and then take a van to our apartment, this one will take us straight there. I must say we are not exactly thrilled with the travel package from our agency. It has not been terrible, but could certainly use improvement.

We load up to go to Shamian Island and as soon as we hit the hotel's lobby Emerson starts to cry. We make it to the island and get seated at Lucy's and Julie and the girls all order grilled cheese (missing home anyone?). Max orders hamburger and I order Indian curry. This should make the PSR director at our church happy as we know he worries about our curry intake. LOL! It is fun to watch the other adoption families and wonder where they are on the timeline. We catch a cab back to the hotel and Max is impressed with the Bentley we see though we can't imagine driving that nice of a car in this traffic. We get to the hotel and see a Porsche so when coupled with the Lamborghini dealership, we have a trifecta and head up to the room for a nap. Something tells us that we'll need it with the 3 hour drive to Hong Kong ahead.

We get up grab our stuff and head downstairs to catch the van. We also need to wait for our guides to come back with Emerson's visa otherwise, we won't get very far. While waiting we learn that there is a bit of a change of plans on the whole van deal. Due to the late planning we need to have one van drive us to Shenzen and then meet another driver and van to take us through the border and on to Hong Kong. Yikes, sounds a bit dicey to me but what can we do? We get our paperwork and roll. The scenery changes from city to countryside with rice fields where rice is being planted and oxen are tending the fields to banana plantations and back to city. I think it is interesting to see but the kids think it is about as exciting as Iowa cornfields for miles and miles and miles and miles..... Along the way the traffic varies from free flowing and almost normal to classic Chinese congestion. Our current driver calls the next driver and we meet at a gas station, move all of our suitcases and kids to the new van and we are off! Emerson is less than enthusiastic with the new van and begins his crying routine again.

We wind our way to the border crossing and our driver has us get out and points us to the customs line and tells us that he'll meet us on the other side. Dear Lord, please let this work as he has all of our bags and stuff and we only have our passports. We get into the customs hall and thankfully are directed towards the no joke, "special cases" line. How true is that because none of the lines sounded like they would work for us. Five of us are foreigners and one is a Chinese national (according to his passport). Thankfully we all clear the Chinese border and are issued our exit stamps. Veronica is still mad that I had to lift her up so that the border agent could see her face - she was kicking and screaming and considering her passport photo was taken on the way home from the hospital when she was born, she looks nothing like her photo. We work our way out of the customs hall and look at the morass of people, cars, busses and vans for our driver. Being good Americans we just start to wander in a direction that looks promising and are quickly pointed the other direction by a female border guard in a mask. Wonder how many times a day she runs into people like us wandering around? LOL! After some more wandering and Julie asking me when we start to panic, our driver rolls up and we get back in. Whoo-hoo! We cross the border into Hong Kong who must take some cues from Americans and has a drive-thru border crossing where they stamped our passports and our entrance papers.

We begin the drive into Hong Kong and enjoy watching the countryside transform into cityscapes. We pass through two tunnels under the mountains and come out to see the last part of the Hong Kong city lights show. Every night at 8 the buildings on Hong Kong island are lit up in a symphony of lights show. We will get to watch it in its fullness tomorrow but it is cool to see as we work our way into Kowloon. Max and I both are excited to see a Ferrari 456GTA, which is a beautiful blue four seater automatic (yep, you read that right an automatic Ferrari). This is one I have seen before on the Internet when researching 456GTAs and this guy talks about driving his in Hong Kong all the time. He's not lying! LOL!

We wind our way to the apartment and our driver helps us unload and get our bags into the lobby of the place then takes off. While getting out of the van, Veronica's blanket falls into the Hong Kong gutter! Surprisingly, what we figured would have been thermonuclear war, was shrugged off with "that's ok, mommy" thank God! We have a washer and dryer inte apartment so will learn how to use tomorrow. So much for my plan to ask him if he wants to take us to the airport. We must have scared him off. We all jam into an elevator that is pretty small only to find that there is not a button for our floor. We ride up and then back down to change to another elevator and do it all over again. We find our apartment, figure out how to work the door (easier said than done, trust me) and we are here. We go through our routine to get the place setup, blow up Veronica's bed which will be Emerson's tonight and try to get settled in. Sydney and Veronica are sharing a bed in one room, Max is sleeping on the couch and Julie, Emerson and I are in the other room. Sydney is exhausted and decides that tonight is a good night to give us a hard time at bed time. She is still up at 10:45 when we decide to change our plans of getting up early to go to Victoria Peak lest we pay the piper tomorrow. We finally all fall asleep and dream of what lies ahead.