Day 16 Thursday, April 26

Funny, two weeks ago we were rushing down to the breakfast buffet in Beijing, all psyched for the day's events, bristling with energy. Now today, we don't even get up for the buffet downstairs. Our room is strewn with clothes and toys and everything else imagineable on the floor (and under the bed). Housekeeping has to call us to see when we will be leaving so they can make up our room! :)

Tami was up with Allie most of the night, so I wanted to give her a break this morning. In my tired stupor, Alison and I took the stroller and made one long, last trip around the island, seeing the merchants we had befriended in the past 12 days, and picking up our laundry for the last time (I will definitely miss having my clothes laundered daily for $6). As always, Allie is a big hit with the locals, she definitely is a cutie in her pink outfits, fussing or not.

We are preparing to meet Cordelia at the White Swan hotel in about an hour for our "red couch picture". This informal ceremony is the last right of passage for adoptive parents in Guangzhou. Since everyone is supposed to stay at the White Swan (do we do anything normal anyway? :)), it is also expected to have all the babies in your group dressed up in their finest outfits for one last picture together on an infamous red couch. Hopefully, I can sneak back to the business center tonight to post that picture for everyone to see.

This will be our last post. Tomorrow we check out of the Victory Hotel, and head to the train station for our three hour ride to Hong Kong. From there, we take a van to the Hong Kong airport.....Our flight leaves for Seoul at 12:30 a.m. and gets there about 6 a.m.

Faith has arranged to get us a 'day room' at the Seoul airport. So Hopefully, we'll be able to get a shower and sleep for a few hours. Then, at 5:30 pm, we board our last plane ride for Seattle. We are expected to get in around noon on Saturday. (Joy: we will call you once we're through customs). So talk about 'Planes, Trains, and Automobiles', huh?! Steve Martin had nothing on us. ;)

Thanks for following our blog. It was fun to do, and we hope you were able to get a sneak peak into our trip. I'm sure most of you will be hearing from us once we get over our jet lag. Until then, God speed and see you soon!.......

Love,
Blair, Tami and Allie