Oh, oh, oh, oh...my little China ... boy

Nihao!

So here we are, Friday night, March 19. The flood waters have receded and the basement is dry once again. It was not a good week in the water in the basement category. Okay, so we didn't get 18" like last time, or even four feet. With the pump we had, we managed to keep it to under 2". Why do I tell you this here? Because while all that was going on, we had to make some travel arrangements because ...

(drum roll, please...)

We're leaving for China on Wednesday, March 24. Holy cow and good God. That's right, kind reader, we are China bound! I'm moving ever closer to the moment of utter dadness. I've never been a dad before (at least not in this lifetime. If I was in a past life, I don't remember it), so this is gonna be (as they song) a whole new world.

There are four other families that will be in Beijing and Guangzhou with us, one of them from Harrisburg, PA. It'll be nice traveling with a small group of Americans as we make our way through a foreign land, the Middle Kingdom (between Heaven and Earth), as it's called.

Arrive in Beijing after a 13 hour, 45 minute flight from Newark (which I way prefer over JFK or LaGuardia). We have our orientation there as well as a trip to the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, and the Forbidden City. We even get to see a silk factory.

Then it's off to Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu, the province where Ben's staying. Speaking of Ben, we are presented with him on March 29. The name of the city where the orphanage is, is Huai'an. I think we'll be getting a tour of the orphanage.

A few days later we're off to Guangzhou for all the bureaucratic stuff. Paperwork, medicals, visas, etc. I'm hoping we have a day to sneak over to the safari park. We're in China, we should see a panda or two, right? We have close to a week there to make sure everything's on the up and up. Ben needs to have all his papers in order.

Here's the cool part (one of the many cool parts): We leave China at 10:25 am on Friday, April 9th, fly for 15 hours, 30 minutes and arrive in Newark on Friday, April 9th at 1:55 pm. You do the math. Planetary rotation and time zones, and flying into the past. Does this mean that if we watch the news in China before we leave, we'll know what's going to happen in the US before anyone else does?

As Linus once said to Charlie Brown: Take consolation that the world can't end tomorrow because somewhere in the world, it already is tomorrow.

That's the travel plans. Plenty of writing time as we cross the country and the Pacific Ocean. I'll wave at you West Coasters as we go over ya!

I'm hoping to upload pix as we go, so you can all share our journey with us.

Talk to you soon.


Peace,
Gary . . .