THE AMAZING RACE OR ETHAN'S ADOPTION

WE HAVE MADE IT TO ZHENGZHOU CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After traveling over about 19 hours by air we made it into Guangzhou last night about midnight. We flew on a DC9 to Detroit. We were on the very back row. I had to put ear plugs in to keep the ROAR of the engine from busting my ear drums. I really do not like this plane. Our flight from Detroit to Tokyo was good. We were not able to watch any of the movies because our speakers in our seats did not work. they gave us vouchers for $10.00. We land in Tokyo around 5:45 have to make it through security and to our connecting flight that was scheduled to leave at 7:00. We literally went from one plane to the next with no stops in between. I had to use the restroom so bad. I had the hardest time getting to use the one on the plane. We had lots of turbulence on all flights. Some were a little scary.

Greg and I are the only family that is adopting from this province so we were on our own. we have felt like this is more of the Amazing Race than our adoption. As we are leaving the airport we are looking for the taxis so we can make a 45 minute trip for 4 hours of sleep. One guy tells us that he is a taxi driver so we follow him. As we are doing this we pass a taxi stand. Something did not seem right with this. then he turns to us and says "Yeah I'm a taxi." While looking over his shoulder. All of the sudden he takes off to the parking lot and tells us to stand and wait for him. Two security guards (airport police) come up and tell us that he was not a taxi and that we could get one at the taxi stand. Crazy. Don't worry, we would not have gotten in if his car was not actually a taxi.

So, we get to the Holiday Inn about 12:45. I shower and go to bed to try and get some rest. I had to put ear plugs in to drown out Greg's snoring. We wake up at 5:00 am. I have a huge headache from lack of sleep and fluids. I was not feeling the best. We get to the airport and go to check in. The lady behind the counter starts making this face like she doesn't understand our reservation. She takes our passports and goes now to another counter. she was there for about ten minutes. Finally her supervisor brings us our broading passes. I think that when the reservation was made it put us in row 32 but the plane only had 22 rows.

Now we have landed at the airport in Zhengzhou. We were told that after we got off the plane our guide would be there to meet us. I'm sure you can guess what I'm about to say. She was not there. We called the main contact in China. She informed us that she had gotten a text that Miranda would be able to be at the airport but that someone from the hotel was suppose to meet us. Well they were not there. We had a gentleman come up and asked if we needed help. We thought he was trying to get us to let him take us to the hotel. We were wrong. He told us that if we took this bus into town then a taxi it would safe us about 50 yuan. After he told us this he said goodbye and went into the airport. Thank you God for the make up of the man earlier. We took the bus into town and then walked about a block to our hotel. No big deal on that.

We meet Miranda at 9:00 am (7:00pm home time) to go get Ethan. The office is about ten minutes from our hotel. Hopefully we will get some rest before then. We will upload pictures when we get them. Please keep praying. Pray that the rest of the trip will run more smoothly. Oh, we might get to go see his orphanage on Wednesday (Tuesday night).