It has been one crazy long day, but we made it to Hong Kong and are all tucked into our beds at the Regal Airport Hotel. Our flight to Chicago leaves tomorrow around 11 am, and we are fortunate in that we will only have a five-minute indoor commute from our hotel to the terminal.
We are all exhausted.
The day began with the most unexpected of surprises: all four of us woke up in a good mood. We enjoyed our last China Hotel breakfast buffet and settled in for a long morning of doing very little. We couldn't leave until Pearl's travel visa was in hand, and Shiyan planned to pick up all the visas around 3 or 3:30 pm, so everyone in our group just kind of hung around the hotel and killed time until then.
After Pearl's early nap (brought about by the exhaustion that can only follow an epic tantrum after being told not to hit Bean), we spent some time in the 4th floor outdoor play area. We then officially checked out at 2 PM. That was a noteworthy event, as a Chinese businessman was yelling at the desk clerk in Mandarin while vehemently slamming his fist on the counter in a dispute over some mini-bar charges.
The hotel kindly let us stow our luggage in the concierge room, so my family and I then used the underground crosswalk to cross the busy street and get a late lunch at the nearby Australian coffee shop (really, I can't make this stuff up). After lunch, we reconnected with our travel group in the hotel lobby where we quickly established a small encampment, much to the chagrin of the approximately 20 circulating lobby workers.
Between the screaming children and the power drilling and metal grinding (apparently three o'clock in the afternoon is prime time for installing wall-mounted television screens in hotel lobbies), our wait was quite serene. Nevertheless, I was deliriously pleased to spy Shiyan stepping out of a taxi shortly after 4 PM. She had a fat stack of clear envelopes in her hands: the visas! The wait was over!
Shiyan and the US Consulate workers had put the fear of God into each adoptive family in regards to those clear envelopes. Each envelope contains a brown folder with our child's visa documents. If the brown envelope is missing, opened, torn, manhandled, or looked at askew (that last one I made up), the adopted child WILL NOT be allowed to enter the United States. We were all directed to guard the clear envelope containing the brown envelope containing the visa documents with our very lives. The brown folder MUST be given to the customs agent in the US in pristine condition - or else!
Shiyan also returned Pearl's Chinese passport and gave us her Hague Adoption Certificate (lose these on penalty of death also). We then located our van buddies (the family or families assigned to ride with us from Guangzhou to Hong Kong), and loaded ourselves, our children, and our belongings into the vehicles for the two hour ride to the border.
When we reached the border with Hong Kong, our caravan of vans pulled off the highway onto a small side road. Nine vans and nine drivers waited for us there on the roadside: one for each family in our travel group. Each family was rapidly unloaded and we stood in the road for several minutes in bewilderment as our China drivers talked logistics with the Hong Kong drivers.
It seems strange to get out of one van and get into another van just to cross a border, but apparently, this is the most efficient way to make the crossing. Each family needs to be in its own vehicle with their own luggage; otherwise, all the luggage would have to be unloaded and inspected at the border. I knew that the van exchange was coming, but I still felt some trepidation, as it seemed more like we were being smuggled than legitimately transported.
My family's new van driver had a touch of psychomotor restlessness and his hair was inexplicably dyed blonde, but he appeared quite capable. Whereas the China driver had driven on the right side of the road (American style), the Hong Kong van had the steering wheel on the right and the driver drove on the left side of the road (UK style). He thrust some Hong Kong customs forms into my hands and I frantically attempted to fill them out while he drove toward the border at breakneck speed. The finished products looked like preschool art projects, but, thankfully, no one seemed to care. When the van slammed to a stop at the first border checkpoint a few minutes later, the driver collected all four of our passports, the China customs exit forms, and the Hong Kong customs forms.
The border between China and Hong Kong is the most impressive border I have ever seen. First of all, it is lighted so well that I easily forgot that it was 7:30 PM and nighttime. There was an initial checkpoint where the driver handed the agent our passports and forms. The van's right-hand sliding door rolled open automatically, and the agent peered in at each of us as he studied our passports. Seemingly satisfied with us, we were permitted to drive to the second manned checkpoint a few hundred feet away. The van slammed to a stop again and, this time, the window on the left side of the van opened slightly while the right-hand door rolled open. One agent studied us and our passports on the right-hand side while a second agent approached the van on the left, pointed a temperature gun at each of us through the partially-opened window, and then turned on his heel and left. Meanwhile, we could clearly see cameras pointed at the vehicle from every direction.
The entire border experience took about four minutes. It was certainly one-stop shopping. I'm glad I knew ahead of time that the "gun" was a temperature gun; otherwise, I probably would have ended up rocking myself in the fetal position from sheer overwhelming trauma. We had been repeatedly reminded by multiple people that no one - and they do mean "no one" - with a fever is permitted to cross the border into Hong Kong. Therefore, despite the fact that the four of us were all surprisingly quite healthy today, we all took prophylactic acetaminophen doses before reaching the checkpoint. I wasn't taking any chances.
I'm telling you, if our borders looked like this, I don't think anyone would even try to sneak through. Canada geese would probably just give up migration altogether rather than attempt the crossing.
After passing the double-layered border defense, we crossed a long bridge and found ourselves in bustling Hong Kong. Tall buildings. The neon glow of LED lights shifting and dancing on the sides of skyscrapers. Double-decker buses. More taxis than I've ever seen in one city. Bridges with graceful spans and twinkling lights. The scene was simultaneously beautiful and insane and, through it all, our driver weaved and accelerated like some kind of arcade game player. Angry Driver and I openly gawked at the scenery, and even Bean looked up a few times from Looney Tunes on the Nabi to admire the bridges. Pearl sat silently, first on Angry Driver's lap and then on mine, staring with wide eyes and two fingers in her mouth as the van sped down the highway and over one bridge after another.
Finally, we pulled up at our hotel. Strangely enough, there were no porters to take our luggage. Bean was still engrossed in Looney Tunes and Pearl insisted I carry her ("Mama ba ba", or "Mama, hold me"), so poor Angry Driver was forced to schlep all four suitcases, three backpacks, and a bag of diapers. Naturally, the registration desk was located on the second floor and we couldn't find an elevator.
After a speedy late dinner at a French bakery in the airport terminal (again, I can't make this up), we all fell into our beds. Pearl's rickety portable crib looks like it will collapse at any moment, but she is actually tolerating the pillow and blanket. Bean is sprawled sideways in his single bed. Angry Driver collapsed from exhaustion after his Sherpa guide shift. Me? I'm tired too, but I can't sleep because it is just so exciting to think that we have come so far and that we will be home tomorrow.
Well, technically, we will be home in two tomorrows since we will experience 12/24/14 twice due to crossing the international date line. Two Christmas Eves and then home in time for Christmas with the best possible present, our Pearl? I'll take it!
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