Working our way around!

Hi everyone. So right now it is 1:15am (China Time) we  are still in Hong Kong. After our flight landed, I said a prayer to our awesome Lord thanking him for a safe and excellent flight. I then asked him for total guidance as we embarked the plane and began to approach the
people of Hong Kong to get us to Hyatt Sha Tin, which is where we will be staying.

The very first thing we witnessed when we began to walk in the airport where lots of people wearing mask around their mouths especially the women. Herb kept saying to me, “Maybe they know something we don’t”, hahaha. I kept thinking just don’t drink the water and watch what we eat. As we were walking towards immigration & customs, we then saw a Chinese couple get really mad at one another and the lady threw her cell phone across the airport into a million pieces. I was like “Well ok then, welcome to Hong Kong", and the boyfriend/friend/or hubby yelling stuff at her in their language. A piece of her phone landed in front of the man and instead of picking it up, he kicked it another few yards in front of her… I was like, "Oh man, someone is not happy".

Oh well, we continued to walk towards immigration. The immigration officials took our travel documents inspected them, stamped our passports and sent us on our way. We then went to baggage claim, picked up our 4 pieces of luggage (which I have to say – they were all within the limit and we did not have to pay extra for any overweight items, yayy us – not typical of the Bosch Family, I always have a tendency of over packing). So, we then approached the foreign exchange counter and we spoke to this nice lady and told her where we were going and we needed to take a taxi to the hotel, she told us more or less what taxi we should take (because they are color coded for different areas and different pricing) and how to get to them, and the best thing, she SPOKE ENGLISH!!

We then exchanged $100.00 American dollars into Hong Kong money, the exchange rate is 9.1 to $1.00. Not bad! So, I then took out the address of our hotel in Chinese language that our agency provided for us and worked our way outside to get our cab. Approached the green cabs, handed them the address, the cab driver grabbed our luggage put them in the car and we were off.

It puts you in a very vulnerable position when you are totally relying on some stranger who does not speak your language and you show him an address that you have no idea what it says to take you to some place.. Herb said “If this man knew that we were loaded with all this cash, he would kidnap us and take us to his cousin’s house and nobody would ever see us again”. I said, “Really, Herb”? That makes me feel so comfortable, BUT He better not because we have our daughter to pick up in just a few days”, lol. At any rate, we asked the driver “if he spoke English and he said, “No”. So we just sat quietly in his back seat and enjoyed the ride for about 30 minutes to the hotel.

I did notice though that his cell phone was on a little stand on the dashboard and he was texting and driving (NOT SAFE) but all in all we got to the hotel safe and sound.

The total cost for the cab was $216.00 Hong Kong money (which was about less than 30.00 U.S.) he did charge us an extra $10.00, we asked the luggage carrier at the hotel why he charged us more than what the meter read and he said “It was for the tunnel fee, the luggage carrying at some other stuff” (I think he was basically just adding his tip, it was all good though – still cheaper than what the lady at the airport said).

So now we check in to the hotel “Hyatt Shatin”, what a beautiful hotel!  We were welcomed by this nice young man who takes our luggage and escorts us to the check-in desk, the people behind the desk spoke English, so far we have not had any problems with the language here in HK, we got checked in and the man behind the desk escorted us to the elevator, pressed the 11th floor and said, "Enjoy your stay!"

When we got to our room, they gave us the room key and it’s not like the hotel room in the U.S. that you insert your key in this hole and it digitally opens it for you. This key is like a censor and you place it under this light, the door opens and then in order to turn on the lights in your room, you have to put the master key in this little box looking thing and it powers your entire room, very cool. Our view in our room is of the bay and behind it our all highrise buildings, in the evening you see the moon shining on the bay and the lights lighting up their city, it truly is beautiful from what we could see at night. The room is very modern, the bathroom is HUGE. In one bathroom you have marble walls that divided the toilet, the shower and the bathtub with very heavy matching doors. Now what I liked is where the king size bed is, you have the room with a desk (like a typical hotel room), but it has a clear window so if you’re taking a bath, you can see the people in the bedroom. (I know that sounds weird but if you’re by yourself or with your spouse only, it looks really nice). I will take a picture of our room so you can see tomorrow.

We finally got to bed around 11:30ish and then all of a sudden our room phone rings and it was our tour guide Matthew. He welcomed us and we went over the plans for the next couple of days. He said since we arrived a day earlier, the rest of the group will get here tomorrow which is Friday 11/30/12 , this will be a free day, so we can do whatever we want. We will probably sleep in and then go out and explore what we can without getting into any trouble we hope. We are having a sight-seeing tour with our group from CCAI on Saturday and we are to meet down in the lobby at 10:00am, we will be gone all day and return back to the hotel by 4:00pm. In our group there are a total of 10 ppl. Not sure if it’s 10 couples or 10 individuals. The sight-seeing tour consist of visiting Victoria Peak, Repulse Bay, Aberdeen Fisherman’s Village and then we will have lunch with our group from CCAI. I am looking forward to this tour because at this time we will be able to meet up with other people who are also adopting.

Matthew also informed us that we will then be departing Hong Kong with another couple to “Nanning”, the capital of Guanxji (where Isabella is) on Sunday afternoon. Our flight takes off at 4:00pm and we are to meet downstairs with bags packed by 2:00pm.

It is getting closer and closer until we meet our girl. Such an exciting time. Well, that pretty much sums up things for today.

I will post again tomorrow night with what we ended up doing on our own on Friday 11/30/12.

Again, thank you for all the prayers and support.