Unexpected Adventures

October 9, 10 & 11, 2015

We left Seattle on time and arrived in Shanghai having lost 15 hours of time and to find out that our bags had been put on a flight to Beijing rather than our plane. The reason they gave was because our plane was too heavy so they needed to remove bags to lighten the load.  The next flight out was to Beijing so that's where the bags went.  Okay...... 

Zeke at the hotel in Guilin with Stripes.
Randy is in the background with Jackie
(left of him) waiting to get rooms.

We boarded our flight to Guiyang around 6:00 on Saturday night and tried to get some sleep to help with the time transition. We woke up to an announcement in Chinese and loud murmurs throughout the cabin from the other passengers.  The pilot said he could not land in Guiyang due to fog and rerouted to an airport in Guilin (a 45 minute flight or 2 hour train ride away). Hmmmmm, what now?  The airport was chaos because we were not the only flight that had been rerouted or grounded. It didn't help that none of the airline employees spoke enough English to let us know what was happening.  We hung out for awhile trying to figure out what to do and keeping an eye on the other passengers from our flight.  We waited awhile and then approached the desk again and asked if anyone spoke English.  There was a young businessman named Jackie who responded and filled us in on what was going on. We thanked him and went to sit down and wait.  A few minutes later he joined us.  He ended up being our impromptu guide for the rest of the evening.  When the airport employees figured out what to do with all of us Jackie made sure we got on the correct bus to the hotel and helped us get rooms for the night. A godsend for sure! He chose to take the train to Guiyang early the next morning rather than wait for the afternoon flight so we said goodbye to him last night. This morning we had breakfast at the hotel and tried to figure out when the bus would arrive to take us back to the airport. Thankfully another English speaker saw our struggles and jumped in to help. It seemed like every time we found ourselves in a situation on our unexpected adventure where we REALLY needed someone to translate for us, someone would appear asking if we needed help.  We have met some real life angels in the last two days!

A bus arrived to pick us up from our hotel and then took us back toward the airport. It as quite a different experience driving through Guilin in the daylight than it was in the dark.  There were amazing hills of rock, buildings being built everywhere, and more people than we expected.  When we pulled into town last night there weren't any cars on the road and most everything around us was dark.  It was unexpected to see how big the city really was!  After driving for awhile we pulled up to another hotel and questioned what was happening.  Why weren't we at the airport?  It came a pleasant surprise that we were stopping for a complimentary lunch. Nice! Then back on the bus and to the airport. Dejavu! Back to the same waiting area we were in last night . . .  


A 45 minute plane ride and we are here!  Our guide Jerry met us at the airport and laid out our schedule for the next four days. We thought Gotcha Day would be today but found out it will be tomorrow morning instead.  This actually works out better since we are more travel weary than expected (due to our extended travel adventure), we don't have our luggage (it will arrive later tonight), and do not have some of the things we want to take with us when we meet Isaiah for the first time.  So, the rest of our evening will include relaxing at our hotel, finding something to eat for dinner and enjoying the view from our 180 degree rounded window.  The room they originally gave us was tiny and included 2 twin beds and a chair.  No way we were going to have enough space for two little boys let alone two more beds!  They had a larger city view room available so we upgraded to save the sanity of everyone involved.  The view is AMAZING!

Thank you for your continued prayers!  Watch for a Gotcha Day post next! :)
R, R, Z & I