Continuing the Journey

We’re in Zhengzhou!

Our flight to Zhengzhou this morning went very well…no waiting, no turbulence, no issues. Yeah! We arrived right on time and met our guide for this part of the trip, Yisha. While Sindy was sweet and bubbly and a bit disorganized, Yisha is no-nonsense, serious, and efficient. I’m not saying she isn’t sweet and bubbly – she may very well be – but her manner on the bus to the hotel was a stark opposite to what we’ve had the past few days. We all knew she meant business and that we were expected to pay attention!

We arrived at the Crowne Plaza…wow, what a hotel! Take a look at the lobby…

…isn’t that beautiful? We waited to get our room assignments from Yisha, then headed up to see our digs for the next five days. I have to say, staying in a five-star hotel isn’t a bad deal if you can get it. Here is what awaited us in Room 340…

...a beautifully decorated and comfortable room. Wait a second, what was that over in the alcove area???

Yes, folks, it’s a crib! Talk about a stark reminder of why we’re really here…it gave me chills to see that thing in the room. Not sure if Molly will use it, but we thought we’d keep it in case she’s more comfortable sleeping alone. If not, we have two double beds…she can surely snuggle up with one of us if she prefers! As we unpacked, Daddy placed a few “friends” in the crib for Molly…

…the adorable Chinese doll mailed to us by her foster sister Michelle and her family (thanks Cole Family!), the Zoobie Pet hippo Aunt Debbie gave me for Christmas last year, and an adorable puppy that big sister Meggie found at Target last week. We will be taking her Chinese doll and the puppy tomorrow morning for Gotcha.

This beautiful hotel also has a cute playroom (for rainy days)… …and an awesome indoor pool…

…where we’re planning on spending lots of time during the next five days. After getting a bit unpacked, we headed to lunch at the noodle shop next door in the Holiday Inn Express (thanks, Midge, for the advice on that one!) and happened to run into Yisha in the Holiday Inn lobby. We asked her to join us for lunch and she did. It was nice to get some one-on-one time with her and get to see her personality.

I told Yisha I “knew” Emily…a fellow adoptive mom who had wonderful things to say about her. (By “knew,” I mean we’re Internet friends but have actually never met.) Yisha not only knew Emily and her family, she immediately knew who I was and asked about Qiu Feng. Qiu Feng?! That’s Carson’s Chinese name!! Apparently, she lives in Hefei and used to be the guide there before the Henan Province started doing international adoptions and she got moved to work here. She said she spent a lot of time checking on the kids at the Hefei orphanage when she worked there.

How did she know we were Carson’s family?! I have no idea, but it was so cool to talk about him with someone who knew him before we did. When she saw our family picture (it’s in the side bar of the blog near the top), she was blown away by how much Carson has changed. (Well, technically, she only called him Qiu Feng when we talked…) Emily, you were right – Yisha is amazing!

Ann and Erin (the mother-daughter travel mates I’ve already blogged about) kept talking about getting massages and Daddy decided I needed one, too. He even went down to the room and booked it for me. (Before you get too impressed with our financial situation, massages are dirt cheap in China!)

I headed down after dinner to find the massage room was actually a converted room in the hotel…in fact, it is the room directly beneath ours. I rang the doorbell and a cute, petite Chinese girl answered the door wearing pale pink silk pajamas. For a second, I thought I had interrupted her nap or something. Nope…she was the masseuse and that was her uniform. In the room there was also another young girl, a middle-aged woman, and an elderly grandmother. OK…the more the merrier, I guess.

The room had three massage tables. The masseuse led me to the table in the middle and motioned for me to lie down on my stomach. Since she made no attempts to offer me privacy to undress, I laid down fully clothed. Apparently, that’s exactly what she wanted. I’ve had many massages in my day, but I’ve never had a masseuse try so hard NOT to touch my skin. It was almost comical how careful she was while massaging my back not to touch my exposed arms. Since I was wearing shorts, I was quite looking forward to what she did to deal with THAT once she got to the lower part of my body. (She actually did touch my skin when she had to, in case you were wondering.)

Again, having had many massages in my day, I thought I knew what I had signed up for. I was wrong. This cute, petite Chinese girl beat the crap out of me!!! After a few minutes, she noticed me squirming and asked if the massage was OK. I chuckled and told her it was a bit too rough. She couldn’t understand what I was trying to get across to her, so the third time she asked me if it was OK, I just agreed that it was and decided to "grin and bear it." She spent about 20 minutes working on my back and I spent most of those 20 minutes trying not to cry or scream out in pain. I will say, though, that the head, hand, and foot portions of the massage were utter and pure heaven! After an hour of torture – I mean, massage – she offered to give me another hour…I politely declined, paid her, and ran away before she decided to kick me in the shins or something. Man, for a cute, petite girl she has some brutal hands!!

So that was our day. It’s currently 8PM and I think I’m gonna try to get some sleep. Daddy already beat me to that and is snoring loudly on his bed, fully clothed. (Grrrrrrr…)

We meet in the lobby at 9:40AM tomorrow morning and will be getting our kiddos at 10 o'clock. While it has felt like forever since we got our referral for Molly Jayne, suddenly I can’t believe it’s already time to meet her!! I seriously doubt I’ll be sleeping much tonight, even WITH Tylenol PM! Here are pictures of my kids (all THREE of them)…

…before I sign off. For those of you who pray – and I know many of my loyal blog readers do – please say an extra prayer for the seven scared kiddos who will be meeting our travel group tomorrow and getting their Forever Families.

Off to bed…Gotcha is only 14 hours away!!!!!!!

********************************************

Hi, it's Meggie! I want to let you all know that I am going to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and blog Gotcha Day! So when you wake up, come over and check it out! My mom told me to wake up early, but I don't think she is expecting that early. (: Thanks for all the comments, and keep praying please! Have a good week. (: