Home from China

Sorry to leave you hanging for soooo long!  Last time you heard from me, we were getting ready to leave China!  Well we got packed up and checked out of our hotel and met John down in the lobby.  We went back to the US Consulate to pick up Karis’s passport and US visa.  We actually stayed in the van while John ran in and picked it up and it didn’t take very long at all.  John had arranged with our driver that we would touch his shoulder if Karis needed to go potty while we were waiting and he would drive us to a bathroom.  Our driver didn’t speak any English and John knew that Karis had to go potty all the time and was not a happy camper when we made her wait.  Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry about it though!  So after picking up the passport and visa we headed for the train station.  We had opted to not pay the extra money to have our baggage checked while on the train.  It’s free if you just keep it with you.  We had a plan on how to do it all ourselves!  Todd and I both wore backpacks and Karis’s backpack was on the back of her stroller.  I pushed the stroller and pulled a small suitcase.  Todd stacked our other small suitcase onto the handle of the big suitcase and he pulled that with one hand and our other large suitcase with the other hand.  Thankfully, John helped us with everything getting into the train station and he stayed with us as long as he could until he couldn’t go any farther.  We did manage to get everything down the escalator and to the train by ourselves.  It’s kind of a mad rush to get onto the train because there is not much luggage space and the first ones to get there get to claim it!  Thankfully, we met a nice man from Italy while we were waiting for the train and he helped us get all of our luggage onto the train.  He happened to be sitting in the same train car that we were, so he helped us get our luggage off the train when we arrived also!  I love how God places people in just the right places to provide for our needs!  The train ride was pretty nice.  It was about 2 hours long and the seats were pretty spacious and comfortable.  They came through selling some sort of food a few times, but we were not sure what anything was, so we didn’t purchase anything.  They did give everyone a bottle of water to drink, so that was nice.  I had heard that the squatty potties on the train flushed onto the tracks and I do believe that is true.  Karis used the potty once and then later we tried to use it again, but the doors were locked.  I was trying to figure out what was going on and a man on the train told me there was no toilet service in Hong Kong.  By this point we had crossed the border and I assume that the people in Hong Kong didn’t want dirty railroad tracks, so that did not allow toilet service.  Thankfully, Karis managed to wait until we got to the train station without getting upset.  Our guide, John, had told us that we should hurry and get off the train because it would be hard to get a taxi with all the other people on the train also wanting a taxi.  Well, because we had to find a bathroom for Karis and because we didn’t realize we had to fill out Arrival Cards, we managed to be the very last people through the customs line!!  We thought John would have been so proud of us!  ;-)  Thankfully, we found luggage carts to use in the train station and since we knew we had a 45 minute taxi ride to the hotel, we opted to go ahead and eat in the train station before leaving.  Our options to eat were McDonalds or at a place that had some strange food we weren’t sure about, so we opted for McDonalds.  By the time we got out to find a taxi, there was no line at all as everyone else was already gone.  We didn’t have to wait at all!  We showed the taxi driver our note that John had written in Chinese telling which hotel that we needed to go, and we were off.  It was fun driving on the left side of the road, and the city was very beautiful.  We would have loved to have more time look around and see Hong Kong, but by the time we got to our hotel and got checked in it was bed time.  Our room only had one double bed in it though we had requested an extra bed for Karis.  It took a while to finally get the extra bed brought in so we were just sitting around waiting to go to bed until they finally brought it in.  We had to get up and get going pretty early to get to our flight the next morning.  The hotel was actually connected to the airport so we figured we’d have plenty of time to get where we needed to be and then eat some breakfast while waiting for our plane.  But, there were so many people there and so many different checkpoints and lines that we had to go through that we just made it to our gate in time to board the plane.  We did manage to stop at a convenience store just outside our gate to get some food and drinks to take onto the plane with us.  Then we were told that we could not bring our own drinks onto the plane as there was yet another check point before boarding the plane where they took it away from us!  The most interesting thing in the airport was seeing soldiers walking around carrying their machine guns in the low ready position!  We made it onto our plane and prepared for the 14 ½ hour long flight!  The trip actually wasn’t terrible (or maybe I’ve already blocked it from my memory).  Since we had 3 seats and Karis is small, we had more room to stretch out.  She did pretty well and slept for several hours.  She kept wanting to put her feet up onto the seat in front of her, so we did have to fight that battle, but otherwise it was fine.  We did make several trips to the potty, but it was good to get up and stretch my legs.  When we took off in Hong Kong the plane ride was very bumpy and made a strange noise, so that scared Karis and she cried a little bit, but other than that the plane rides didn’t bother her at all.  She didn’t want to wear a seat belt at first (she’s probably never worn one as they don’t have to use them in China), but we showed her that Mama and Baba were wearing one, and she agreed to it!  After the loooong ride, we landed in Chicago and were very happy to be back in the USA!  Karis got a stamp in her passport and became a US Citizen in Chicago!  We should be receiving her Certificate of Citizenship any day now!  We had to go through customs in Chicago and then make a long trek to our next gate.  We had plenty of time and were able to relax for a while.  I was able to call home and talk to Brandon and Bekah too since our cell phones were working once again!  The flight home was pretty short, and then we arrived in Louisville where we were greeted by Brandon and Bekah and my parents and Todd’s mom and aunt.  It was sooo good to have our whole family finally together!