BlessingsForMadi: Day One of Travel!

At about 10 pm Thanksgiving night we boarded a new airbus 380 on China Southern & headed towards Guangzhou! Much to our surprise the flight did not seem as eternal as we thought it would be. It helped that it was a night flight so we slept as much as we could. Earplugs & a night eye mask worked wonders! The service & food was great & the comfort wasn't bad especially after they gave us seats with more leg room, just behind first class. After snoozing some hours, & 2.5 meals later ( over a dozen water bottles & lots of trips to the bathroom for myself) we landed in Guangzhou safe & sound ( after 15.5 hrs )! In case you forgot that I've been a phobic flyer for years, I managed to do great on the flight if I say so myself. Honestly though, I've been prepping myself up for this trip for quite some time now telling myself that as a new mother to be I'll just have to suck it up in situations that cause me fear because I'll just be no good to my daughter if I act like a big baby. But in all honesty, the shorter 1hr flight we had to take to Nanchang was the one that I fidgeted the most as it was a pretty bumpy ride and way smaller of course.

& speaking of our flight to Nanchang.....our experience at the Guangzhou airport was a bit of a nightmare. First we walked like what seemed miles just to get to our boarding gate, then when we get there they make us go through security twice & made us dump out most of our items in our carryons & no one seemed to speak any English so we felt like we were just going in circles.

After arriving in Nangchang our local guide "Mary" met us & immediately had a driver pull up in a nice VW sedan & drove us to our Hotel the Galactice Peace, which is really nice!

The drive through Nangchang from the airport was also really nice, lots of greenery & clean streets. Mary called this the suburb area & kept saying "wait till we get to the city where your hotel is .....it's going to be very different than what you're used to". & boy was she not kidding! It was quite an adventure just trying to weave through traffic. All we can say is that it is fascinating to witness how people manage to drive their cars, scooters, bikes, feet...whatever through the streets with absolutely no traffic direction whatsoever! & even now as I type this, the horns are continuously honking away! Fascinating I tell ya!

Once at the hotel & we ate some sort of "pick a dish from the window & have it cooked" deal ( which was pretty good btw ), Mary took us to a grocery store she said was really close by the hotel. Let's just say that her idea of close by & our idea of close by are not the same ( especially if it means walking through the busiest streets you have seen with a gazillion scooters, horns honking & the stinkiest tofu you have ever smelled, little kiddos doing their business on the streets, you name it). So much adventure for our first day for sure! & Finally we arrived at the "nearby grocery store", which was pretty ginormous with electric escalators with 2 or three levels. Here we got some essentials for our daughter tomorrow, like formula, rice cereal, snacks, etc.

That's right! We are meeting our daughter tomorrow! It's all happening so quick now...don't have a clue what to expect, but there is no more time to think. It's barely 7pm in China as I write this, & we are so tired and might just make a peanut butter sandwich in our hotel room & call it a night. Hopefully well wake up more refreshed tomorrow so we can clean up a bit before they bring her at 4pm ( China time, 12midnight Sunday USA time. ) So surreal! But please continue to pray that her transition with us will go as smooth as possible for her, poor little one. She will most likely be tired herself from the long drive from her orphanage to our hotel.

Leaving you with a few pics....