Leaving Nanchang

November 13, 2004

We checked out of the Gloria Hotel and went to the airport. The flight to Guangzhou was one hour and 10 minutes. It was exciting because it was Katrina's first plane ride and we had no idea how she was going to react, but also because this is the last part of our trip.

Katrina stayed in the baby carrier that AR was wearing for most of the trip. I took her out and let her look out the window on the airplane so that she could say goodbye to Nanchang. I cried a little because she was leaving the only home that she had ever known. I never forget that the happiness that we feel at having her has come at the expense of someone else's sadness. I hope that she will one day want to return to see Nanchang.

She cried a little, but mostly we kept Katrina occupied by feeding her Cheerios. I gave her a sip of strawberry juice and she seemed to like the taste of it. ATtleast she did not spit it out.

After getting our luggage we headed to a bus that was going to take us to the White Swan Hotel It was an hour bus ride. The White Swan is an enormous hotel that caters to business people and families adopting. We stayed in room 1640 and our friends from NH were in 1638. We had the city view from the window which wasn't as pleasant as the river view that was on the other side of the hotel. The room was nice. It was a little 1980s dated, but clean and big enough for us.

Our travel group planned on meeting for dinner, but we were all so miserable with our colds that we did not go. Katrina had her bottle and just kept crying. She wasn't wet and she couldn't be hungry because she just ate, but we could not get her to stop crying. AR walked her up and down the hallway of the hotel. We were at wits end and did not know what to do.

Our room servie order arrived and Katrina pointed to the food on the table. Could she actually just be hungry??? She ate cheese, rigatoni with vodka sauce and bread. This is one hungry baby and mommy and daddy were too stupid to know that she wanted to eat!

With her belly full, she drifted off to sleep quickly. Mommy and daddy drifted off too nearly as fast too.