Chongqing

Saturday, November 9, 2013 did not exist for us. We left Friday morning and arrived in Chongqing after midnight on Sunday. Our heads hit the pillow at 1:53am.  It was a long day of travel but we made it! We are very thankful we decided to arrive a day before we meet Lil O because we are pretty tired today. It was difficult to sleep in, so our bodies are a bit wacky.

The flights were great. We flew on two Asian airlines which felt like we were traveling in the 1960's. We felt like foreigners the minute we boarded in Seattle but everyone was very nice. We had an empty seat between us for the 11 hour flight. Such a blessing. It was crazy to picture this little man flying home with us in that very seat. Tyler and I were both saying how surreal it feels to actually be heading to China. This adoption process has seem so long that we never thought we would actually get to this point, but here we are!

We met our guide Michael at the airport. He has been guiding adoptive families for 15 years. He gave us some fun facts about Chongqing: It is the largest city in the world in both population and area. Eight million people live in the city center and 32 million in the municipality. It is roughly the size of Austria. It is the sister city to Seattle. It is home to the world's largest dam on the Yangtze River. Millions of people were displaced when they built the dam and sent here to the city. 

Right now the weather is decent at about 70 degrees but very smoggy. We can see a little of the mountain side. We toured the shopping and grocery stores near our hotel this morning and have the rest of the day to ourselves. The hotel is VERY nice. I took a couple pics and will take more throughout the week.

We got to talk to talk to D and Lu (gonna shorten their names for the sake if the World Wide Web) when we woke up and saw their sweet faces. We miss them so much. Can't wait to be home, but we are going to soak up this experience. We will meet lil O in exactly 24 hours. That is about 9:30 tomorrow night for you all. Please pray for us and mostly him if you think of it. This is such a huge deal and is going to rock his world. We know he will experience grief and loss and may be very confused but we are praying that the Lord will shower him in comfort and peace. Thank you! Love you all.

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