Touring Day with CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption Agency) group 1938

This morning began so early. It is currently 7:30pm and I felt like I have been up for days at a time.

The morning began with a yummy buffet style breakfast downstairs. This is the first time we ate real food. In their buffet we had choices of American style food or Chinese food. I ate scrambled eggs, toast & bacon with raspberry yogurt and 2 cups of coffee (yes very bland and boring). Herb on the other hand, ate like a horse (his excuse, “I haven’t had a hot meal for like 3 days”, lol) Anyways, Herb had eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, 2 HUGE bowls of noodle soup with fish and beef, which he claims was delicious and much more. Our bellies were tight and we were ready to embark on our tour and meet the rest of the group.

We all gathered downstairs at 10:00am.  We were greeted by a representative from CCAI named Joey, an Asian woman, nice as can be. She asked us if we were “The Bosch” family and then united us with our group. She introduced us to the rest of the families.

So here are so the people that are in our group. We have Jennifer & Carl, this family is from Winston Salem, North Carolina and they are adopting a precious 14mth old baby boy whom they will name Kyle, he is from Jiangxi province. (They have with them on this trip their 19mth old (little Evan) he was adopted from Ohio, cute as can be. You will see some pictures of Evan.

Then, there is Becky & John.  This couple is from Alaska and they don’t have any other children. They are adopting a beautiful 9yr old girl from Guangdong province. (I believe they said they are going to name her “Sadie”.  Her friends call her mei, mei = little sister in Chinese).

Lastly, there is the Jay & Bonnie and they are from Kentucky. They have a set of 3yr old fraternal twin boys at home, and are adopting a 14mth old baby girl from the same province as Isabella (Guanxji) and coincidentally, they are from the same orphanage.

Bonnie says that their baby girl was in foster care also, but they don’t know if she was in the Grace and Hope program like Isabella. We, Jay, Bonnie, Herb and I, will be meeting with our travel guide tomorrow at 2:00pm downstairs to head to the airport to fly to Nanning, China.

Jay and Bonnie told us, they not sure if the Wharton International Hotel in Nanning has internet service. I did some research and it says the hotel does have internet service but I am not sure if they have it in the room or in the business center. I read the reviews that the internet service was very, very slow. So if you don’t hear from us, don’t think something has happened.   Just know that we may not have the access that we have had here in Hong Kong.  

Ok, so now about our day. The first stop we went to was Stanley Market. Wow! What a beautiful place, it was very near the ocean. Some of us had a choice to go to the shops and some could go towards the beach area. For those that know me well, you know that we are beach goers, so we skipped the shops and headed down towards the beach. It was so beautiful.  We took lots of pictures by the water.  There were people in sailing and fishing boats and the weather was perfect, not hot and not cold, and a calm breeze.

After strolling the beach area, we all met up at our meeting point about 45 minutes later and we headed to Aberdeen Fisherman’s village. Aberdeen Floating Village is located at the Aberdeen Harbor in the Southern District of Hong Kong. The harbor contains approximately 600 junks, which house an estimated 6,000 people. Since the 19th century, Aberdeen has emerged as one of the most important fishing ports in Hong Kong. We took a ride on a boat, managed by an elderly Chinese lady. I have to say she ran that boat like a champ. I tried to take a picture of her but she did not want her picture taken.

The harbor was filled with many boats and yachts (there is a lot of money in Hong Kong, you will see the photos). After we left Aberdeen Floating Village, we headed towards Victoria Peak.

Victoria Peak is a mountain in Hong Kong. It is also known as Mount Austin, and locally as The Peak. The mountain is located in the western half of Hong Kong Island. With an altitude of 1,811 ft, it is the highest mountain on the island proper, but not in the entirety of Hong Kong, an honor which belongs to Tai Mo Shan. The actual summit of Victoria Peak is occupied by a radio telecommunications facility and is closed to the public. However, the surrounding area of public parks and high-value residential land is the area that is normally meant by the name The Peak. It is a major tourist attraction which offers views over Central, Victoria Harbour, and the surrounding islands.

On our way to Victoria Peak, we passed by Jackie Chan’s home(you know the Chinese actor back in the States who played in the movie’s karate kid 2 and Rush Hour and many others. Our guide Matthew said that Jackie Chan was a friend of his, Jackie did not know him, but he knew Jackie very well, lol.

After Victoria Peak, we drove to downtown Hong Kong where Herb and I visited yesterday for lunch.  This was an experience. We went to a local Chinese restaurant. Our guide paid for the bill.  There was a total of 11 of us. We sat at a table with a Lazy Susan and our guide ordered the food for us.  The waitress brought out plates and more plates of food. This process is called Dim Sum. What is Dim Sum? Dim Sum is by definition “Tea Time”, where you go to a restaurant in the afternoon and they serve you with small bamboo steamers that have all different kinds of small bite size dumplings pork, shrimp, and rice balls. We also had special fried rice and so much more. I can’t tell you the names of the things because I don’t even know how to spell it, but I can tell you that Herb really stepped out of his box and ate like a horse again (the excuse this time couldn’t be that he hadn’t had a hot meal in 3 days) to him it was just delicious. I tried the food but my stomach was full, so I didn’t eat a whole lot. However, I did have 3 cups of hot tea, which was yummy. I did take pictures of our lunch, it was quite the adventure.

After lunch, some of the couples stayed in downtown to hit the stores while the couple from NC and ourselves headed back to the hotel for a little cat nap. This time I called for a wake-up call, hence the reason why I am now blogging.

This pretty much sums up our day. I will post a few pictures.

Next blog post will be from Nanning, China, if we can get internet service. Please pray that we have safe travels and we can communicate via internet. I need to upload pictures, so I will do so on a different post.