With a week left before our departure, we just got a detailed itinerary from our agency with the list of hotels and activities for each day. The hotels all look very nice and a bit more posh than what we typically choose on our own when vacationing.
In Beijing, we will be at the Qianmen Jianguo Hotel. In Nanchang, it will be the Crowne Plaza Riverside Hotel. In Guangzhou, we will be at the China Hotel. We already booked the hotel ourselves for Hong Kong...we won't have much time there, so we just picked one of the airport hotels as it will mainly be a convenient bed for the night before heading to the airport in the morning.
We will have a chance to visit Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour, and possibly an acrobatics show as well as the Great Wall while in Beijing. After that, it is all about Tamasyn and if we sneak in a city tour or some shopping in the other places we are visiting, that will just be a bonus!
We have a conference call with our agency today regarding these final travel details.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Travel Dates Set
Spent a good part of the day figuring out travel arrangements on Tuesday. We fly to Beijing on April 4, spend some time there sightseeing, go to Nanchang to meet Tamasyn on April 8 (Easter Sunday), and then on to Guangzhou for consulate appointment April 17. After we receive visa for her on April 18, we will take a train to Hong Kong, stay overnight near the airport, and then fly home from there the next morning.
We used a widely recommended travel agent, Todd Gallinek, and he made the booking of the to-from China part very easy. Some folks do it on their own, especially if they are using frequent flyer miles and need to deal with airline directly, but it can be a bit of work flying in and out of different cities and having a one-way ticket for kiddo on the way back who did not travel with you on the way there. We also read it is nice to have somebody to help if travel plans go haywire while in China, so shout out to Todd for being so helpful and efficient!
The details of the in-China travel are fuzzy otherwise because our adoption agency is planning that and hasn't updated us just yet. From what I hear, there is some hurry up and wait and needing to be flexible for last-minute change of details -- not unexpected.
Auntie is also booked to come stay with big brother while we are gone. Hoping for sunny weather since where she is from is snowless and she is bravely taking on my carpool duties!
We used a widely recommended travel agent, Todd Gallinek, and he made the booking of the to-from China part very easy. Some folks do it on their own, especially if they are using frequent flyer miles and need to deal with airline directly, but it can be a bit of work flying in and out of different cities and having a one-way ticket for kiddo on the way back who did not travel with you on the way there. We also read it is nice to have somebody to help if travel plans go haywire while in China, so shout out to Todd for being so helpful and efficient!
The details of the in-China travel are fuzzy otherwise because our adoption agency is planning that and hasn't updated us just yet. From what I hear, there is some hurry up and wait and needing to be flexible for last-minute change of details -- not unexpected.
Auntie is also booked to come stay with big brother while we are gone. Hoping for sunny weather since where she is from is snowless and she is bravely taking on my carpool duties!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Consulate Appointment!
We received our consulate appointment today which means we will meet Tamasyn on Easter Sunday, April 8 and have a 2-day consulate appointment taking the oath and getting her visa for the U.S. on 4/17 and 4/18. Off to confirm dates with the travel agent :)
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Travel authorization arrived 3/16!!!
We got our TA so now our agency can request the consulate appointment and build our trip from there. I talked to them at about 3 p.m. today, so we will know more on Monday. They say we will likely fly into Beijing where we can sightsee a little before we go to Jiangxi.
Big brother had lots of fun watching his parents get travel immunizations last week.
We got some great advice from 2 neighbors and some more distant friends via e-mail who have done the trip. They told us a lot about what to expect and what to pack. It gets overwhelming because for every time you read on adoption boards to bring this and that, another person will say not to bring those same things! Confident that it will all work out and whatever we don't bring we can either get there or live without.
Big brother had lots of fun watching his parents get travel immunizations last week.
We got some great advice from 2 neighbors and some more distant friends via e-mail who have done the trip. They told us a lot about what to expect and what to pack. It gets overwhelming because for every time you read on adoption boards to bring this and that, another person will say not to bring those same things! Confident that it will all work out and whatever we don't bring we can either get there or live without.
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