Sorry it has taken a little longer to get our first travel post up, but the combination of a flight guffaw and jet lag have prevented us from posting any sooner.

So here is what we've been up to:  After a very nice flight from LAX to Shanghai, we had a 4 hour layover until leaving for Hong Kong.  As we approached our gate for boarding we were notified that our flight had been cancelled, and for no good reason.  Our guess is that there weren't enough passengers booked to make it a profitable flight so it was cheaper to cancel and send us to a hotel.  Getting re-booked on another flight, getting a hotel, and transportation, was very sketchy as hotel personnel didn't speak English, and didn't seem to care much about our predicament.

Waiting to board for our flight out of LA

We took a nap in the Shanghai airport

Luckily we met 2 sweet young ladies who were in the same predicament, and they befriended us, translated for us, and were super helpful.  Meet Candace and Fish! (Yes, Fish!  Often times Chinese will use simpler pronuciations of their names for the sake of their American friends.)  We spent a lot of time with these 2 on days 1 & 2 of our journey, and we were sad to part ways with them once we landed in Hong Kong.  Both girls are from Hong Kong and were in the U.S. going to college. Candace is studying at Cal Poly Pomona. Fish came to attend Pensacola Christian College for a couple of years and then transferred to Liberty University another Christian college in Virginia.  It was neat to not only have her help but to know we have more in common than just being stuck in Shanghai.....we have a love for Jesus Christ.  God is so awesome to have connected us like He did!  Candace and Fish were clearly God's grace to us in a potentially difficult circumstance.  Thank you ladies!

So we had been up for 26 hours, with some napping, by the time we got to the hotel around midnight.  And because we were booked on the 7am flight out the next morning, we had to wake up around 4am to catch the shuttle back the next morning, brutal!  To our frustration, we found that when we got to the airport that no one was at the check-im counters, because the first flight wasn't leaving until 8am.  So we could've slept another hour, but instead found ourselves loitering for an hour at the Shanghai airport because of bad info from our flaky airline. We are using the same route in reverse on our way home, with the same airline.  Needless to say, we are slightly nervous about this.

But on Friday morning, we made it to Hong Kong!  Hong Kong is a beautiful, clean city, but man is it hot and humid this time of year.  In order not to miss too much of our touring plans, we hit the ground running on Friday.  We braved the train, ferry, tram, and bus transit systems, and successfully navigated our way to Hong Kong island and made our way to the top of Victoria Peak.  This peak offers breathtaking views of Hong Kong:

On Saturday, we went to Disneyland in Hong Kong.  There are some striking similarities to the Disneyland in Anaheim, and some pretty cool distinguishing features, and about 1/3 smaller than Disneyland - Anaheim.  Again, the heat and humidity was pretty taxing, and we only lasted 7 hours there.  That is saying a lot, as we can go 4 days easy in California.  We enjoyed getting back to the hotel and enjoying the pool.  Here are some pic from Disneyland:

Grace tuckered out after Disneyland

So tomorrow, Sunday, we will be up bright and early and catch a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, and from Guangzhou we will hop on a short flight to Nanning in the Guangxi province.  It is in Nanning that we will meet our sweet Brooklyn for the first time.  Our "gotcha day" is Monday morning, which is Sunday evening in California.  Please pray for Brooklyn and that her grief would be helped by a trust in her new parents and family.

I'd like to end our posts with some of the humorous signs/clothing that we have come across.  For whatever reason, it is "cool" in Chinese culture to wear clothing with English phrases, even though they may have no idea what they actually mean.  Here are a few we ran into today:
      Hat that read:  Supply Monday - "What Might"
      Shirt that read: The Night Music for Desire - Good Tunes
      Shirt that simply stated:  "ACNE"
      Also ran into a Disney employee whose nametag read "Fatrick"

We thank all of you for your prayers.  We can't wait for Monday morning