Wednesday March 9th - Travel Itinerary

Hi Folks,
Well the long awaited travel itinerary arrived today! We now have a basic list of what we are doing, a Gotcha date and a list of hotels we are staying in.

On the 29th we depart Toronto, arriving in Shanghai on Wednesday March 30th at 4:35pm. We will be staying at the Baolong Hotel in Shanghai (http://www.sinohotel.com/hotel/hotel.html?hid=865). The bulk of our travelgroup will arrive on the 1st of April and we have a scheduled day of tours on the 2nd. The remaining sightseeing, we will do on our own.

On Monday April 4th, we depart our hotel at 6am (yikes) for a flight to Hunan arriving at 10:05am. We will check into the Grand Sun City hotel (http://www.sinohotel.com/hotel/hotel.html?hid=238) and briefly grab some lunch. At 1:30pm, we'll be meeting Lilah at the Civil Affairs office -- GOTCHA!

Tuesday April 5th, we'll be processing paperwork while Papa and Naomi check out the hotel amenities. We are hoping either Wednesday or Thursday will be our trip to Zhuzhou. Friday we pick up Lilah's Passport. We depart Hunan at 8:05pm.

At 10:05pm we arrive in Beijing and are staying at the Poly Plaza Hotel (http://www.sinohotel.com/hotel/hotel.html?hid=57), which is very close to Tiananmen Square in the Northeast part of downtown. Saturday Lilah will have her medical examination, Sunday April 10th is our trip to the Great Wall. Our group is planning a trip to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City on the 11th, but we'll probably take a down day that day to allow the girls to get to know each other and catch up on some rest. We may visit the Beijing Zoo if all is going well. Tuesday the 12th is a shopping day and we may also visit the Summer Palace or the Temple of Heaven. Wednesday we pick up Lilah's visa and have the traditional Peking Duck dinner to celebrate. On Thursday we depart for Canada at 4:20pm and arrive in Toronto at 10:30pm (a mere 6 -- I mean 18 hours later).

In checking out our Hotels, it appears that we have great accomodations. You never know when things might change though, so we have to be flexible in that regard.

Cheers,
Karen