We Made It!!!

Ahhh, we made it! It's Monday morning and here's an update on what our trip was like so far.

We left GR at 1:10 p.m. on Saturday, April 21. Ryan and Heather, Abby and Ty took us out for breakfast at Bob Evans to start our day. Then they dropped us off at the airport. Ty started crying – he didn’t want us to leave. It was so cute! Our flight left right on time and we arrived in MN on time.

We flew on a 747 (with 66 rows of seats) from MN to Tokyo. It wasn’t really very roomy though. There were 10 seats across where we sat. It was an 11 ½ hour flight and 6,071 miles! We arrived in Tokyo at 3:45 a.m. (it was 4:45 pm there). We met a family from Tennessee at the airport in MN. They are picking up a 7 year old son today.

We left Tokyo right away for Hong Kong. All our flights have been right on schedule. We arrived in Hong Kong a little earlier than expected – at 10:05 pm here (10:05 am at home). The flight from Tokyo to HK was 1,195 miles. It’s been 21 hours since we left home! I had a slight melt-down when we landed, but nothing serious! It took quite a while to get through customs and to find our luggage. It's really busy here because there are two different conventions going on. It was 84 degrees when we landed. We exchanged some money and then bought a ticket for the Airport Express to take us to Kowloon. There we got a cab to take us to the Eaton Hotel. Everything was so organized! Dave was getting a little testy! I asked him if he was excited and he said “I’m frickin’ tired and sore and sick of sittin’ in a plane!”

Our room is really nice! We are on the 19th floor at the Eaton Hotel in Kowloon. We had a message from Rukiya that she would call us at 8:00 a.m. Well, by 12:30 we were in our room and ready to get some sleep. Well, that didn't really happen for me! Dave slept on and off. I couldn't fall to sleep and hardly slept, so at 6:00 I just got up. That woke Dave so we went down for breakfast. Yum! A huge buffet, included with the cost of our room.

Rukiya (Laiya's social worker) called and will pick us up in the lobby at 9:30. She said that because of the video and photo albums that we sent, Laiya is very comfortable and very eager to meet us. We will ride with Rukiya to Laiya's foster family's apartment. We should get there around 11 (that will be 11 pm on Sunday back home). It's raining here today and the prediction is for rain again tomorrow. Oh, well . . .

We will spend the day with the foster family and then Laiya will go home with them later this afternoon. Maybe tonight we'll catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Well, I need to get going - don't want to be late!! Thanks for your prayers!
Dave and Marva