We checked out of our hotel in Guangzhou and headed for the airport at 6:30 am. Our flight was to leave for Hong Kong at 9:55 am but since it was to be an international flight we needed to get there early. Ruthie was not happy to be waked up, and who could blame her?
Sleepy faces.
Still managed to get a little smile from her, even when tired.
We got our boarding passes and checked our luggage without any issue. We made it through an extra international check super quick since they had a "baby" line.
It all went so smooth that we had tons of time to kill in the airport.
Ruthie did quite well with the wait. It ended up being even longer than expected since the flight was a little delayed.
Ready to go to Hong Kong! First leg of the journey. Clearly, Trent is thrilled.
Happy girl in her own seat!
Playing with her seat belt.
The 30 minute flight to Hong Kong was a breeze. We got into Hong Kong right around lunchtime. The Hong Kong airport is enormous with a full floor filled with probably 40 or more food options.
This was a tempting choice. Haha!
In all our wanderings Ruthie fell asleep. It was really annoying trying to find a place to sit for lunch. It was right at noon and literally every seat was taken. When we were clearly looking for a place to sit (with a baby) people were done eating and just looking at their phones. This must be a common problem as there were signs on the tables telling people to leave the table when you are done eating.
We woke Ruthie to eat Popeye's Chicken. It was so delicious to have some American food done right!
Yum!
Still waking up.
We had a total of about 6.5 hours to spend in the Hong Kong airport. Hong Kong uses different money from China so during our first layover Trent had exchanged the minimum dollar amount.
Playing with pens.
To exchange the money back to USD you don't get as good of a rate back so Trent said we should spend the Hong Kong dollars. Thankfully there were tons of shops to pick from. I found a clothing store that I love and had never heard of before traveling to China. It's called Zara. I was excited to find that I can shop online and will likely get some things there in the future. I spent the Hong Kong money on an outfit for Caroline.
(Caroline wore the outfit the first day we were home)
Passing the time playing with nesting pandas.
And dressing up.
And un-dressing up.
And trying on head bands.
And crying.
And walking and having diapers changed.
And running.
And staring angrily at people.
Finally!
It was time to board. I put Ruthie in the carrier as it's the easiest way for me to keep track of her active little self and still be able to carry anything else.
Headed off for our 15 hour flight. We left about 5:45 pm on Friday, May 26. Since time goes backwards we actually arrived home on Friday, May 26 at about 9:15 pm (landed about 30 min early).
The flight started off kind of rough. Ruth was really tired from not napping much in the airport.
She screamed for about 30 minutes.
Then her food came which made her happy. She had a movie playing on her tv screen which was helpful.
She didn't really listen to it but somehow found watching with no sound funny.
After she ate she was still super sleepy. I couldn't get her to settle down until I gave her a bottle. Then she laid down and slept.
She slept a for a few hours straight. Then she flopped around awhile and laid on my lap and watched some movie. Then she laid herself back down and slept for probably 4 solid hours.
This is over the Arctic Circle. We flew over Alaska right after this. The air temperature outside was -56*. I could feel the cold air on my window.
She had another crying fit before we landed. Once we landed and were just taxiing she lost it and was in meltdown mode. Thankfully as soon as we got off the plane she was fine.
We waited in the immigration line for at least 30 minutes. Then we had to go to another room where they processed Ruth's immigration documents we compiled over the past 2 weeks and previously.
The way China adoptions work, she became a US citizen at touchdown.
And a pretty cute one, at that!
My sister, Stacy, was waiting to pick us up!
Ruth was glad to be off the plane and free to walk around.
She ran to Stacy without any fear which was unusual for her the past 2 weeks.
She was a total ham.
Cutie! I was worried how the 2.5 hour drive from NJ to PA would go since car seats aren't required in China and Ruth had never ridden in one. After giving her a little snack she fell asleep on the drive home and slept the whole way. We got back around 1 am.
She LOVED Petey.
He makes her laugh. We definitely used him to ward off some fits the next day.
Sleep that night was not so good. I tried to put her in the crib but she screamed. I didn't want to wake the other girls so we put her in our bed. She still screamed (only now it was in our ears) for probably 30-45 minutes. She woke up super early, around 5:30 am.
The jet lag and time difference will take some time to get used to. All in all, it's good to be home and the trip went better than expected. I was especially thankful for good health on the journey home.
