Breakfast is simple oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, bananas and OJ. Julie and I race around the apartment getting it cleaned as best we can since this is someone else's house and we want our deposit back, plus it is just bad manners to leave a place trashed. We are checking and double checking everything and getting the final clothes and shower stuff packed up. We rock and are ready to roll out the door at 7:45! We turn everything off, lock the apartment and pack into the small elevator like a clown car. We are downstairs waiting for our ride and around 8:10 we decide to call the company and find out where our driver is. Their reservations number rings busy, the driver's cell goes straight to voice mail in Chinese and we wait. Eventually the phone we had been using rings and the lobby attendant speaks to someone and then we roughly communicate that the driver is 30 minutes out. Nice, just stinking nice. Good thing we have some fluff time, huh though I wasn't planning on using it all up just yet. We wait until 8:45 and try to call again with more of the same results. The lobby attendant helps the kids pass time by letting them pet his cat, which is one of the fatter Tom cats I have seen in a long time. Surprising too considering the stories we hear. About 9AM and still no driver we decided to get taxis. The lobby attendant helps hail a cab and convinces the guy to let all of us go in one. Apparently they are used to over filling taxis here in Hong Kong as he loads his trunk and uses a bungee to keep it closed. We are not sure what the lobby attendant told this driver, but he gets us to the airport like a F1 driver and we make it in less than 30 minutes! On the way we got to cross the Stonecutters Bridge (the one we saw the TV show about) as well as the longest suspension bridge in the world.
We get to the airport and six of us climb out of the back seat of this Toyota taxi, unload our stuff, tip the taxi driver nicely and head in to get checked in. We get checked in with no issues, clear security and immigration for Hong Kong. Funny to think that everyone flying from Hong Kong is on an international fight, as there are no domestic flights served from this airport. We find our way to the gate and as we are preparing to board are pulled aside for priority boarding since we have children. Nice! We go through another round of someone checking our bags and getting the stroller gate checked before we get settled in to our seats.
The flight was long as you'd expect and we were a bit delayed in taking off due to a typhoon in Taiwan that caused the inbound flight to take a little longer route. Emerson did great on the flight with the exception of diaper changes. Apparently airplane restrooms are as scary as ones on the ground. He sat in his seat for awhile but the majority of the flight he was either held by Julie or I. The older kids did what we didn't want them to do and that was stay awake on the long flight. We had encouraged them to get some sleep as we know this will be a very long day, but the allure of Leapster, Nintendo DS, movies and who knows what else was too great. Veronica got some sleep and Sydney started to doze off on our descent into San Francisco. Oh well, what can you do? On landing, Emerson became a US citizen formally so we celebrated with some flags.
We got off the plane and knew we'd have a tight connection to our Denver flight due to the delay in Hong Kong plus we still had customs to clear. We hustled to the customs hall and thankfully the lines were very, very short. The customs agent we had was awesome and welcomed us back and congratulated Emerson on being a new citizen. Unfortunately, he couldn't complete all of the paperwork we needed so sent us to another agent. I understand that everyone has a first day on the job, and it all worked out, but waiting for the new guy to figure out how to process Emerson's paperwork was frustrating. He called his supervisor over to ask some questions and received a smart answer that apparently didn't help him as we watched him type something and then backspace over it a number of times. He finally asked for help again and was again given a short answer but apparently the one he needed to get it wrapped up and we were through. While we were waiting, we watched his supervisor work with another family of immigrants who were all smiles as they were becoming citizens too. Unfortunately for them, their first experience with US customs was with this guy and he was rude, short and not welcoming at all. Hopefully the rest of their experience in America is better. I guess jerks are everywhere. We went to collect our bags and thankfully didn't miss anything as our luggage was still coming out of the machine when we walked up. The rest of the customs officials were all very polite and nice. We grabbed our stuff and re-checked it for the domestic legs of our trip and had to pass through security again.
We found our gate and learned that our flight to Denver was delayed due to an equipment change so were were getting to fly in a 747 for the second time that day. While we waited for the plane to be prepared we called home and let everyone know we were in the states and on our way. The kids were really starting to feel the jet lag now and we zombie-walked onto the plane and found our seats. The flight to Denver was pretty uneventful as everyone was pretty tired. We arrived in Denver later than we hoped, but still with enough time to catch our flight. The girls slept the whole flight and we were fortunate that there were empty seats so they could stretch out a bit. Max slept part of the way and Emerson was in and out in Julie's lap. We landed in Columbus almost 28 hours after we woke up in Hong Kong - talk about a long day! We collected our bags and headed towards the van. Julie's sister was nice and brought the car to the airport and parked it in the garage for us. We strapped Emerson into the car seat and as we thought he would, he didn't like it all.
The drive home was a struggle to keep everyone awake and we decided that we needed some late night food(it was almost 11PM) and decided that we'd hit the Taco Bell on the way home. As we got off the exit ramp, the lights were off and when we went through the drive thru, were told they were closed. So much for the plan, huh? We drove home and were greeted by Zeus who was very excited to see his people come home. He hopped right in the car with us! Enzo the cat gave us a speech about leaving him alone for that long, which he always does after a trip. It was great to be home after the adventure we had. We grabbed some sandwiches and apples and hit the sack.
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That trip home is a killer, isn't it? Good grief. It's long. I can't imagine having my other children with us for it. God bless you! :)
ReplyDeleteKelly