Day 4: Gotcha Day!!

Gloria Plaza Hotel, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China (28.687560,115.877704)
Click the LAT/LON coordinates (WGS84) for our current location
Haze, 14C, Winds W 7 km/h

Summary: Travel Day to Nanchang and meet Lauren.

Details: We packed up our room in Beijing and left our bags outside our room to be picked up by the hotel porters while we had breakfast. I think everyone was nervous this day. The trip to the airport was about 45 minutes by bus and we received our boarding passes as soon as we got to the airport. Security wasn't a problem except for a few bottles of ice wine that someone in our group forgot to check in their luggage. The 2 hours China Eastern flight was uneventful and was never anything to worry about. Another bus was waiting for us at the airport for another 45 minute ride to our hotel. We arrived about 2:30 PM and has a little time before the babies arrived. Some headed to the hotel bar and other waited impatiently for the arrival. Those that waited in the bar got to see the children as they arrived and we could tell which of the 4 orphanages they were from by the number of children that showed up. We actually have video of Lauren's group as they arrived but were unable to pick her out at the time.



Just before 5:00 PM local time we were herded into a small conference room that had 19 babies in yellow snowsuits and 19 caregivers. It was a little chaotic to say the least (we have video of this). We could not pick out Lauren from the group and had eventually narrowed it down to 2 babies. After about 5 minutes we asked someone where is Feng Ke Wen 3 of them pointed to a man sitting near the corner holding a baby. We a few minutes later our names were called and we handed over our Notice of Coming and received Lauren. She cried and so did we. The director of the orphanage gave us a gift of porcelain and the powered milk and rice formula that Lauren has been eating. We took the following shots back in our room moments about 10 minutes later.



All the families retired to their room to get acquainted with their babies. There were no activities planned for this evening. Lauren settled with us as soon as we gave her something to eat. In addition to being hot she was hungry it seems.