We left the hotel shortly after noon and began our departure from China -
the birth place and homeland of our children. The bus ride to the airport
was a touching one, especially when our tour guide Nelson sang two songs in
Chinese to our children to say good-bye and to remind them of their
heritage. To some of us that almost brought tears to the eyes.

The plane ride to Vancouver was smooth but yet somewhat noisy, as we were
flying with twelve other Children's Bridge families, all with newly adopted
children. Once reached Vancouver the families pretty much had to go (more
like run) their own ways, as we were going toward different destinations
such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa within very limited time to do the
transfer. We had to deal with the children's landing papers with
Immigration, claim our baggage, go through Customs, re-check our baggage,
and catch our connecting flights (or get into a car and go home for those
who live in Vancouver). Everything happened in such a rush there was no
time to say good-bye to each other.

Our thoughts, wishes, and prayers are with Tina and Yen, as they are getting
to know their new son in China. They will be returning home shortly and we
are keeping in touch and hope to post their travel plans once we know them.

Looks like this may be the final update for these web pages that were
specially created for the August 2003 Children's Bridge Yangchun Travel
Group. Our thanks to Children's Bridge, the Canadian government, the China
Centre for Adoption Affairs, and the People's Republic of China. Special
thanks go to Nelson Lie our tour guide, who spent countless hours looking
after us throughout the trip and helped us through all the problem
situations. Last but not least, our thanks to Trevor Raybould of Newtron
Group who regularly updated this site with information and photos we sent in
from China via email during our journey.

Some parting thoughts: Many of us we have just endured a journey of a life
time. Throughout the journey we have banded together, helped each other,
gone through tough situations together, and forged a strong bond of
friendship that hopefully will last a lifetime. This is the end of one
journey, but yet is the beginning of a new one with our children and for our
children. As they grown up, we hope we will have the opportunities to
revisit with them their land of heritage and retrace some of the footsteps
that perhaps had made all of us better human beings.....