Our trip to China...Day 1

We just got back from almost 2 weeks in China and had probably our favorite vacation ever. We had such a great time and over the next MANY posts - I will have lots of photos and such. We didn't have much time (or good internet) to post while in China, but I wote a journal each day, which I will post here to try to keep all of our memories. We met so many nice people and when trying to explain to them why we were there - I came up with this: Imagine your life as a puzzle... When you are adopted from a foreign country, your puzzle is pretty much empty with regard to what you know. We were there to try to fill Mia's puzzle with more pieces. This trip to China has filled Mia's puzzle at least 80%, (I think previous to this trip - it was only filled to 10%) and it was an absolute gift for all of us to be all together when the pieces were found. It was so important to Mia and our hearts are completely filled with the amazing people and experiences (and puzzle pieces found) during our trip. Such kindness and such amazing memories - and yes - I will bore you to death with all of it :-)

Day 1 - We got up bright and early to drive to Frankfurt to catch our flight to Chongqing. We flew to Helsinki Finland, and then over Russia and Kazakhstan, direct to Chongqing (I thing Geography is very cool, so it was fun for me to track our flight :-). We arrived about 16 hours later at 7:00am in the morning in Chongqing. We were on our own and we took a shuttle bus to the the Metro Station and then had to stop at the Train Station to pick up tickets that we would need for our travels later in the week. When we came the first time, we had a guide the entire time and we went to many government sponsored places. I loved not being on a formal tour this time- I think we got to see so much more and experience more of "real" China. Chongqing is very isolated with regard to foreigners. The entire week, we probably saw less than 10 Westerners and in the Qianjiang District, we saw zero. Hardly anyone spoke English too, which made it all the more interesting. It all worked out though and I think it made it was much more of an adventure too.

We rented an apartment off Airbnb for 2 weeks and luckily the man that owns it had studied in the U.S., so he was a wealth of information and help for us.  Truly, without him our trip would not have been nearly as memorable. Anyway, we got our train tickets at the train station and then hopped back on the Metro to the closest station to where we were staying. Then we got a taxi to take us the rest of the way. The owner of the apartment had sent me the address written in Chinese, so this was huge. As long as we had addresses written in Chinese - we could always get to where we needed to go.  We then met the owner of the apartment. It was a beautiful apartment on the 19th floor of a building right beside the Yagntzee River. It had an amazing view (which we definitely enjoyed the entire trip) and had lots of things to do right in the area. It was right beside the Sheraton Hotel, but probably less than 1/4 of the price - I definitely recomend Airbnb :-) After we got settled, we took a short nap and then went out to find some food and explore a bit. What I was intantly amazed at was how many people were out and about late into the evening - just enjoying life. I always think the Germans do this, but the Chinese definitely have one up on the Germans. It was almost like there was a festival going on (there were so many people out enjoying), but there wasn't. We saw so many families and our first puzzle piece to be discovered was truly how much the Chinese love their children. It was so evident on our entire trip that children are loved and a definite priority. This was so nice to see and left us with such a nice feeling. We walked around quite a bit and then headed to bed to try to get situated with the time change.

*Chongqing is one of 4 municipalities in China (Baijing, Shanhai, and Tianjin are the other 3). The municipality of Chongqing has 32 million people (New York City only has 8 million - yikes!!). There are 23 districts of Chongqing that make up the entire Municipality and Mia comes from one of those 23 Districts - hers is called Qianjiang District. Her district is 4 hours by train from the main city (where we rented the apartment), but it is still part of Chongqing. The first time we came, we were not able to go to Qianjiang District - so this trip was so special because we took the 4 hour train and spent 3 days there this time (which I will right all about later :-))

We were so excited to finally leave for our trip!

Landing in Helsinki reminded me of landing in Maine - lots of water and lots of islands!

Finnair

Our flight from Helinki to Chongqing (over Russia)

This was the view from our Apartment - definintely fun to wake up to each day! 

right away - you see culture differences - it makes me smile!

Chongqing is very hot and humid from what we are used to. It was quite nice to sit and have a cold drink!

This is the Sheraton next our apartment (it is a bit of a landmark there - all painted gold!) The good thing is that we were always able to find our way home :-)

The girls eating noodles overlooking the city

In front of the apartment was a huge square with lots of things to do - and this view was so nice to see each night!

Most of the time, we had to take 2 taxis (because 4 is the limit) , but a few taxi drivers let us all ride together (here we are crammed in the back (with an exhausted Camden to boot :-))