Our Hong Kong Adventure

We got to Hong Kong by van around 7:30pm on Wednesday night. We grabbed a quick dinner at McDonalds (our new favorite restaurant) and took it back to our room at the airport hotel. We decided to call United to confirm that our reservation had a bassinet for Hadley to sleep in on our long flight to Chicago. They told Aaron that our flight was canceled due to mechanical error and they rebooked us for Saturday. We were supposed to leave Thursday morning. We finally got through to a person on the phone and Aaron got a few different flight schedules. They were trying to finalize an itinerary and he got disconnect. You may remember this exact same situation happen two weeks earlier. United canceled our flights, didn't notify us, and rebooked us for several days later and when we called we waited on hold forever and then got disconnected. I hate United! He immediately called back and got a new person who was very rude and unhelpful. We decided it would be best to walk down to the airport ticket counter. It was about 9pm at this point and poor Hadley had had enough. She fell asleep in the carrier almost immediately. The ladies at the ticket counter were friendly and helpful and told us there was a flight that left around 11:15pm (less than 2 hours at this point). They said they would be closing the counter in about 20 minutes and we still have to go get our luggage and check out of the hotel that we just checked into and get back there to check in in the next 20 minutes. Aaron stayed to finalize the tickets. I ran to the hotel with Hadley strapped to my chest fast asleep. I hiked back to the hotel and up the elevator.  I called for the bellman to come pick up our bags (We had four rolling suitcases, a backpack and an umbrella stroller). There was no way I would be able to get all of that while lugging Hadley. I threw our last minute items in our carryon and headed out to find Aaron. (Side note: I made Hadley a bottle and than lost it in the room somewhere. I figured i accidentally packed it in one of bags that the bellboy had I would find it once we got home. It is lost. I must have stuck in a really obvious spot. I looked all over our room as quickly as I could but I had limited time to get back and had another one I could make on the plane). I ran by the front desk to checkout. I asked for a refund since we were only there about an hour but they wouldn't give me one. I am going to be calling back to take that up with them again.

I grabbed our luggage which had been loaded onto one of the airport luggage carts and took off to find Aaron. I bumped into him and he told me the schedule. We would leave Hong Kong and fly four hours to Guam. We would go through customs and immigration there and then fly another 7 hours to Honolulu after going through customs again there we had to get our bags and recheck them. From Honolulu we would fly another 7 hours to Houston. Our final flight of an hour and 45 minutes finally got us to Louisville at noon on Thursday. This sounded like the worst possible flight schedule but it did get us to Louisville six hours earlier than our original flight with only one stop in Chicago. When I put two and two together and realized we were going through immigration in Guam I was terrified they wouldn't let Hadley in. We were told we could not fly to the US through Canada with a newly adopted child so I was very worried about what may happen when we got to Guam. Well, Guam's immigration was a joke and I can safely say they do not process a lot of adoptions. The guy didn't really seem to know what he was doing and I am praying we get Hadley's citizenship papers as we are supposed to in the next few months. Well, they let us all in without any problems. We had short layer on each of our stops. Enough time to grab snack and drink. The airplane food was awful and we could hardly choke it down.

We enjoyed a Hawaiian pizza on our quick stop in Honolulu that we picked up at California Pizza Kitchen. A lot of the Honolulu airport is outdoors so it was very hot. In the 80s. We joked that if we got stuck in Hawaii that wouldn't be so bad. 

I was not fully convinced about being totally cleared with immigration for Hadley until we got to Houston. I knew once we were on the main land we were in the clear. Only one more quick flight at that point until we were home. Hadley did great on all our flights. The first and last flights she slept the majority of the time on our laps. She did not have a seat on the two shorter flights. On the longer two flights we were luck enough to have an extra seat next to us and we were in the bulkhead row so we had some extra foot room (and a bonus place for Hadley to get down and play. She did good on the two longer flights. She got a little fussy for a few minutes towards the end of the long flight when she was exhausted and had had enough of plane and airports. I wanted to cry at that point too.

Headphones on the plane kept Hadley entertained for a few minutes

Total travel time: Left hotel in Guangzhou at 4:45pm on Wednesday (3:45 am in Louisville) and landed in Louisville at noon on Thursday That is about 34 hours travel time including the drive to Hong Kong with all of the change in time zones. I think we had Wednesday late night/Thursday early morning twice if that is possible. I am still not sure what time we were anywhere. It is all a blur now. Total time in the air was about 20 hours. It ended up being more time in the air than our original flight to Chicago but we made it earlier in the day then we had planned so that was a wonderful bonus.

We were thrilled to get home to see our girls and introduce them to their little sister. They were both so excited to meet Hadley and can't get enough of her. They were excited to see us too. Our two year old kept taking roll naming all of the family members to make sure we were all there. Poor sweet girl went to bed tonight worried we would be gone in the morning. I assured her we would be here and are not going anywhere for a very long time.

Hadley is settling into our family well. She was going on little sleep so it is hard to say if she was upset and clingy because she was so tired and off schedule or if she was just nervous about all the transitions and new surroundings. Probably a little of both. We look forward to seeing her come out of her shell once she is comfortable in our home and with her sisters.

Please ignore any typos. I was literally nodding off while typing. This jet lag is going to be a killer these next few days. Taking some melatonin and then off to bed.

Goodnight from LOUISVILLE, KY USA!!!