Our Journey: September 2012

After 30ish hours of travel, we landed in Changsha! We have been here for a week and this is the first time I've been able to get online to let you all know. I have sent out emails, so if you are on our email list you already know we are here.

According to some, we traveled light for a family of 6 for 2 years. We had 17 suitcases @ 50lbs each, 6 carry-on pieces and 6 backpacks. Light? I'll let you decide.

this is just our carry-ons and backpacks

We were quite the scene everywhere we went. It started at the Calgary airport. We had 4 carts for all our things. Mom, Dad and our friend, along with her 3 children, had brought us and our things to the airport. It took 3 people to check us in and took about 25minutes to put all our luggage through and get us our boarding passes. We were very thankful that WestJet was able to put our luggage straight through to Changsha. We still had 12
pieces of luggage and 2 car seats to contend with, but that was manageable.

We were blessed to have so many family and friends come say goodbye to us at the airport. A special thanks to P@stor Warren and P@stor Sandy for sending us off with pr'yer. It meant a lot to us. There were lots of tears shed, but we finally said bye and made our way through security. Im still not sure how we managed. Tears were shed on the way to Vancouver, but then excitement set in.

We arrived in Vancouver at 11:30pm (local time) and didnt leave until 2:45am. So what did we do? Well, the kids slept. The twins slept even when we had to pick them up and carry them onto the next flight! They slept for about 2hrs in the airport then another 5.5hrs on the plane. J and B also slept in the airport, but B did not crash again on the plane. Andrew and I managed some sleep on the plane, but not much.

The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful. We were not allowed to bring our car seats on the flight to HK. That was the reason we brought them! They had to be checked underneath. There was nothing we could do about it. We were concerned how they would be as they have always traveled in a car seat. We were very happy at how well they behaved for the 13hr flight. They were fantastic! The big kids were great too. At that time I thought we had the best behaved kids anywhere.

We arrived in HK ahead of schedule. We already had a 9hr layover, so an early arrival was not needed. When we landed, we had to go through security to get to the international departures are. A male flight attendant saw us with all our luggage and kids and grabbed a cart and took us through the crew lineup and got us past the 50 odd people in line waiting. What a blessing that was!! He even found us a couple of carts to us for our carry-ons so we didnt need to drag it all around. The 9 hours surprisingly went by quite fast. There was a small kids area where we spent most of the day. There was a McDonalds in the airport, so we had that for lunch. It was like N. American ones, except for one thing:


Seasoning for the fries. No, we didnt try it!

Again, the flight to Changsha was great. It was a short 1.25hr flight. It felt like we barely took off and we were landing. We gained quite the attention. Us white people with all this luggage. There was no one there to help us when we were gathering our luggage. We had to get it all on 4 carts (smaller then the ones in Calgary). We did it. Barely. Once we got our luggage we were supposed to have it all go through a scanner. I guess someone felt sorry for us and one of the security ladies didnt make us unload our towers and we were able to skip the scanner. Lisa and Justin met us at the airport with a sign saying "INKPENS" that their kids made. I guess this was just in case we couldnt see the 6"3' Ozzy waiting for us. We didnt think it could happen, but Justin managed to get all our things into their van, along with Andrew and the twins. B, J and I took a taxi home with Lisa.

yes, the twins are sharing a seat and seat belt

We got back to the flat and pretty much crashed. All of us.

We spent the next couple of days being shown around to a few places by Ruth (our team coordinator, at the time). We got registered with the police (all visitors must be registered even though we have visas saying we are here), took a trip to the market and went for a walk by the river. We also had the chance to go to one of the projects called The Lighthouse. There are about 40 children there who are mildly - moderately disabled. Down's syndrome. Deaf. Mild CP. Blind. We spent about an hour there. Our kids played with some of the kids there. There were no barriers. They all just played. It was so cool to watch them all just be kids.

We have spent a lot of time with Lisa and Justin. They are our age and have 4 children also. So far we all get along. The kids too, even with a 3 year age gap. Lisa has shown me the wet market. Its my new favorite place. Best fresh veggies, fruit and eggs!


All this cost about 35 RMB...about $5 CAN

We have seen some strange things here, by Canadian standards. Spitting in the streets, like all the time, is odd. There are lanes for the vehicles, but they dont always mean much. Buying meat in a grocery store is unappealing. The meat is not prepackaged. It is just laying out there in the coolers, with everyone able to touch it all. Im not that germ-a-phobic, but with all the smoking and spitting going on, it is a little gross. The chicken comes packaged, and frozen. The whole chicken. Neck, face, feet. All. Lisa took us to the wet market and showed us a better place to get meat. Looks like the wet market is the place to shop for most things. Milk is long lasting and doesnt need to be refrigerated. Kids (under 4yrs or so) pee and poo on the street/sidewalk without a second thought. So always watch when you walk by what you think may be water. People sleeping in weird places. China is interesting.

One thing standing in our way of becoming settled is the fact that we dont have a flat to call home. We are staying in a place now while the couple is in the UK, their home. Through conversations, it has come about that the couple living here is going to let us stay here! there is a couple moving out of a smaller flat right across the hall and the couple who's place we are in now will move in there. What a blessing!! This is, however, not a done deal. Just because all people involved agree, it has to be cleared by the landlords. Justin will talk to the landlord next week to change the names on the rent agreement. Please pr'y for this. The flat we are in has 4 bedrooms, a shower and a bathtub. Not much, but its what we are looking for. If all goes 'right' and we take over the rent on this place, we need to purchase a lot of things as this place is unfurnished. On the bright side, the flat the couple is going in to comes furnished and they are willing to sell us the furniture in this flat. Please pr'y that they will sell it a price we an afford.

Here are some pics of the flat...