Paging Mr. Chu

We had to wake up EARLY in order to eat breakfast before going to the airport. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before but C just HATES to wake up... I mean HATES. She was still carrying a grudge at breakfast and decided to punish us by not eating anything. This did not give us good feelings for how the day was going to go.

We got checked into the flight okay and then we had some time to kill so we hit the playground in the terminal. Catherine had a wild time and we had to pull her away crying to board the plane... again, not a good sign.



Much to our surprise (since it was only 10:00am when we left Hong Kong) Catherine slept the ENTIRE flight to Tokyo (a little over 4 hours). She never made a peep. We only had about an hour layover in Tokyo (so strange to be back in the old land after 8 years... I even broke out with my Japanese to the store clerk at the airport! Still got it baby!) so it went by really fast. We did have one strange incident though... as I was shopping and Jay was waiting for the call to board he hears this announcement: "Mr. Chu. Mr. Lian Chu. Please come to the counter." He thought to himself, "No, it couldn't be." But, then he heard it again. So, he cautiously went up to the counter and told the man that he had just been paged. The conversation went like this...

Gate Agent: You are Mr. Chu? (with a surprised look on his face)
Jay: No, she is. (whipping the baby backpack around and pointing at Catherine)
(Gate Agent looks stunned...)
Gate Agent: What is his address in America? (Mind you she has a big pink bow in her hair!)
(Jay writes our address on the provided paper)
Gate Agent: Is he going to be staying with you in America?
Jay: Um, yeah (I think that is how it works!)
Gate Agent: Okay, thank you (still looking really quite stunned but apparently satisfied)

We were anticipating a LONG, difficult flight (especially since Catherine had already slept almost 4 hours that morning) but she was a DREAM on the entire flight to Dulles. I mean, a dream! She slept almost the entire way (and when she was not sleeping she was sitting contently in my lap or munching on a snack) and rarely fussed. Because she was so good we both got alot of rest so we did not totally feel like death when we landed (we just partially felt like death!

We landed at Dulles and got a good look at the 5 inches of snow that had fallen that morning... FIVE. The pilots came on the loudspeaker to assure us that we had arrived in Virginia and not Buffalo :) Catherine's first view of her new homeland was that of a white wintery wonderland... she looked confused yet fascinated!





We waited FOREVER for a tram to the terminal, flew through customs and immigration (where Catherine officially became an American citizen!!!!!!), waited an eternity for our bags, and went through the doors where our family was waiting to welcome us home...