November 24th - CCAA and Travel to Chongqing (Eric)

Looks like I will post first today. It's close to 10pm and Lily has long gone to sleep. We started the day early, getting all packed and leaving the suitcases outside the door for the bellboy to take down to the buses. We are going to visit the CCAA today, have lunch and then catch a plane to Chongqing, which is about a 2.5 hour flight.

We started off at the China Center for Adoption Affairs. This is where all of the paper work for adoptions travels to, is processed and where the matches of children to adopting parents is made.


This is the room where 'packages' are kept after they have been translated and the matches are getting ready to be made. These folks are hard at work. In talking with Vivian, she said that a translator can translate a package and a half every day. But it is hard work and that is not a sustained rate.


After we looked around, the girls had a 45 minute class on Chinese calligraphy and tried their hand at some. Lot's of fun. As we left, Director Chen (spelling?) on the right and the staff of CCAA waved goodbye. It was quite an event.



Off to get some lunch. Surprise.... Chinese food. It was more of a southern Chinese style, Thai and others mixed in. It was Awesome! as usual!

[Carli, JulieAnne and Chessie getting ready for Lunch]

Some of the food was Szeschwan style, which I love. Can you see that bead of sweat coming off of my brow? Yummy!


[That is some hot food - Yum!]

[Random sign as we left the resteraunt]

After lunch, it was off to the airport. We waited in line while they processed all of our luggage and passports. I forgot I had moved some hand lotion into my carry on. Woops. An extra 10 minutes while they looked at everything in my carry on and rescanned over an over. That will teach me.



A smooth ride to Chongqing, naps by some, others talked or read. Sophie Fu was in our row, and she and Lily made origami animals for a good portion of the flight. I tried to catch a quick nap ... lol - not likely.

[Sophie and Lily catching a ride on their luggage cart as we left the Chongqing airport]

The ride from Beijing to Chongqing was a pretty smooth one. On the buses and over to the Hotel for tucking in. Another super busy action packed day.

One a side note.... This is the very hotel we stayed in when we adopted Lily. We spent our first night with her in this very location. Amazing.

Chongqing has changed immensely since I was here last in 2000. New buildings are everywhere. This is the view from our hotel room. This one doesn't look like it will get finished anytime soon. No worries. There are 40 more even better going up right now.

Ok - off to bed. Lily will post tomorrow.

Ciao - Eric