Just Flew into China and, boy, are our arms (and everything else) tired

It is about 5:30 PM (17:30) on Thursday here in Guangzhou. Saying good-bye to Quinn yesterday (or Tuesday actually) was both difficult for us and joyful as we would miss her a great deal but we were also traveling to get her mei mei, Indigo. Quinn actually handled it incredibly well - We believe that her empathy helped her understand that this was just as hard for Mama and Baba too and she managed to be quite brave. The entire trip started out with a rather happy coincidence as we arrived at the airport at exactly the same time as another couple from our travel group, Mark and Lisa, were also being dropped off at SFO. Getting to LAX was fairly uneventful - the hardest part being the wait for our departure time. Getting through the ticketing and security was quite easy at 3 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. Upon arrival as LAX we found our way to the China Southern desk and checked-in. On our previous trip we had been able to get and aisle and window seat and as we had hoped no one took the center seat. No such luck this time, as it was a very crowded flight. The clerk that had helped Mark and Lisa however, didn't offer up a similar opinion on the flights capacity (that clerk had been very wrong). She said it was not full and gave them the aisle/window combo. Later, yet prior to getting on the flight, Mark discovered that these seats could not recline and had the seats switched once again. For a few minutes we thought we were living a Seinfeld episode as we tried to figure out whether our own seats would recline or not. The flight was long and very full but it got us here no problem. We landed at 6:20am and by 9:15 we were in our rooms, with luggage and showers – Yeah! Then it was brunch dim sum and some window shopping before returning to the China Hotel to prepare for our early flight tomorrow morning to Chongqing. We will go to the Civil Affairs Office to receive Indigo at 2:30pm.

Now it’s time to think about a little dinner and a possible foot massage before bed. We are very excited and very tired but looking forward to tomorrow.

Note to Quinn; our cell phone was delayed in getting to the hotel but we have it now and will call soon and you can call us.