We are home!

We made it home late on Friday, after a 27 hour journey. Hana did very well on the plane, and she only really fussed a couple of time, which was mainly from boredom. I think I would have too if it were socially acceptable. The trip started off a little rocky. When we checked in with China Southern, they had no record that we purchased a lap ticket for Hana. So, we gave our guide some money to buy another one. While she was purchasing that, the clerk who was helping us left, and passed our info to another agent, who found Hana's ticket, so we then had to get a refund. We did make it to the gate as our flight started to board. So... we could breathe easy, until we sat at the gate for an hour and a half past when we should have left. So, we arrived in Beijing late, where we had to get our bags and change terminals. That took about another hour, so Brian was getting a bit nervous. When we arrived at terminal 3, we had to check in with Continental, and there was a really long line. Luckily, Brian's status allowed us to go through the fast line, so that took a small bit of the edge off. We then had to go through about 6 layers of security, and we made it to the gate just as they began boarding our flight. But, we did make it to the plane that would get us back to the US, so we were able to relax a little. Until we realized that Brian got pick pocketed and his passport holder was missing. Luckily, the passports weren't in it since we needed them to get through security. There were two of our credit cards in it, which we reported stolen once we arrived in Newark, and the banks identified the activity as fraudulent and declined the charges, so we are not on the hook for them.

I do have to say, I was never so happy to arrive in New Jersey in my life. Immigration was our first stop, where we gave them all of Hana's paperwork from the consulate. The immigration official then stamped her passport, which officially made her a US citizen. The customs part was pretty quick, and we then went to our gate, where we waited for our flight. Even though our flight home was delayed, I knew that we would eventually get there. Even if we had to rent a car and drive the rest of the way home. Our flight did finally leave, and we landed it to Richmond around midnight, and finally made it home about 1:30 AM. Here is a picture of Hana as her first day as an US Citizen:


We are still struggling through a bit of the jet lag, but I think I am finally getting Hana's days and nights straight. I don't know that I will see a full nights sleep for a while, but as long as I get some of my sleep at night, I will be happy.

I want to thank everyone for all of the wonderful comments that you left for us while we were in China. We couldn't actually access our blog while we were there, so I enjoyed reading all of them upon our return. I hope everyone enjoyed reading about our adventure. I'm glad we were able to share that with everyone. Now, onto the next chapter....