CHINA - FLASHBACK

It's been a year.

We have our Gracie, she is so wonderful. This blog is dedicated to her and our experience becoming adopted parents and that's it. But I do want to mention although this has been a wonderful year, its been sad too. David lost his dear sweet sister Louise. Unexpectedly. She died of an infection after her operation for cancer during the Spring. And just last month, the lovely Rose Ann, my wonderful mother-in-law suddenly died of the cancer she had been fighting for two years. She was at home, suddenly didn't feel well, and passed away after they got her to the hospital. We got the word at the airport, headed to our flight to Oklahoma, for a planned visit. Thank you dear friends and family for all your love and support.

So, a year ago tonight, we were headed to the airport on our way to China to get our little girl. We talk about our trip to China alot, and so I decided I would write down some things that were not in the blog, so I don't forget them. Jan and Pat drove us to the airport, and we were so excited. We used the International terminal and we were helped a great deal by one particular lady at the Korean Airlines counter, who was there when we returned. (And who also we ran into 3 months later while traveling back to Oklahoma--she was so thrilled to see Gracie!)
While we were waiting I purchased some cosmetics at the duty free shop, to have a gift on hand for whoever in China, and so
I can see sort of how the duty free purchases went. When we boarded our Korean Airlines flight, the whole crew was lined up on each side on the entry way, in a welcoming sort of way, and as we we stepped out the door of the airport, the nice lady from the duty free shop was there to hand us our purchases. Then as we turned our way back toward the door of the plane, the nice folks from U.S, homeland security swooped in around the guy ahead of me and hearded him off to the side and began to ask him lots of questions. Never did find out of he made it to the plane. The cosmetics made it to China, but got lifted out of my suitcase between Beijing and Nanchang.

Anyway, we loved Korean Airlines. I loved the big plane that didn't feel like we were taking off when we did. I loved the fact that there was only one non-Asian on the plane beside us. I thought it was so cool the Japanese man in the seat next to David said he loved coming to Las Vegas, because it was cheap and they could eat lots of steak. He was really interested in what we where trying to tell him, and he said he could read a little Chinese, so I handed him the card I had put together, which had an explanation in Chinese of what were were doing, and Gracie's picture on the other (These came in really handy during the trip, by the way). I thought the food was great, we had the famous Bibipmap noodles (which came with an instruction sheet and your own mini-tube of hot sauce) but I did get a bit of heartburn afterward and I was glad I brought peppermint tea. I packed 'way too much on the flight there, but I could say I was prepared. The travel blanket I threw in at the last minute turned out to be very handy in China and at airports, we never used it on the airplane, which was warm, even more than warm, but I liked it. I had heard the Asian carriers keep the planes warm, and they were right, and it is way better than the freezing. I still wonder why they made everyone keep the shades on the windows pulled down. I tried not to think how close we were flying to Russia as we made our way across the Alaska.

The Seoul airport was really neat, and we were very hungry and not sleepy because we were so jazzed to be there. We looked at all five places named "Welly" at the airport, and tired to narrow our choices a bit, as all she selections were very Korean and it took a while to figure out something to eat, which turned out to be a sandwich with egg and all sorts of stuff on it, like bean sprouts. The young girl at the cashier booth (you ordered at the cashier and paid there) had an electronic board with current currency rates, and the job probably paid minimium wage, but she had to have some proficiency in like six languages, English, Japanese, Russian, you name it. It was around 6am when we were there, and the staff who worked at the restuarant was also eating, several in a booth, joking and eating noodles. I wonder if I could ever eat noodles so well with chopsticks.