On the positive side, we have all of our paperwork assembled and organized. I need to make a few dozen copies of documents, but we have all of the pieces we need. We also finished our “money laundering”* ahead of time.
(*For all the government officials reading this, I am only JOKING and referring to exchanging legal tender for better quality bills of the same value to pay for official adoption fees in China. Don’t be a weed.)On the still-left-to-do list, we have to actually pack for the trip, clean the house for our house sitter, buy some small gifts for the orphanage workers, and a few other miscellaneous tasks.
One negative that we’ve run into is the luggage weight limitation for in-country (China) flights. For our flights between Newark – Beijing (and Hong Kong – Newark) we’re permitted more than 140 lbs per passenger without any baggage fees. For our flights from Beijing – Nanchang – Guangzhou, we are strictly limited to 44 lbs per passenger before incurring a “per kilogram overage fee” of about $3/kg. This means that we are not going to be able to take the donations of clothing, blankets, toys, and stuffed animals we’ve collected to the orphanage without having to pay >$300 in fees. While it really stinks that we can’t deliver our donations to the children, I’d much rather give the $300+ to the orphanage than to some random government worker at the airport. So while cash is extremely impersonal, it’s about the only thing we can give. We’ll give our donations to a local charity instead. Thanks, China Airlines.
We have been told that both Facebook and Blogger/Blogspot (i.e., this blog) are currently blocked in China. So we’ll move on to Plan B to send blog updates via email, and/or Plan C to have a mystery blogger post for us. Supposedly Skype will work from China, so we’ll be chatting that way whenever possible. Also, we’re encouraging Lucy to keep a journal of her journey. We’ll post those to our blog as we’re able.
You really crack me up.
ReplyDeleteGlad everything is coming together. No one cared about the quality of our USD in China, they just cared that we didn't try to use it. That's right, our first order of business was to exchange it for yuan even though we'd been told to bring new USD for the orphanage donation-they wouldn't accept it.
They are strict on the weight limit. My travel mate packed everything but the kitchen sink and even after emptying out donations, had to pay a fee when she left the country. Maybe you can get the address and send the stuff to them-it's probably cheaper than sending it through as luggage.
Good luck with the rest of the minutia.
Ruby