My China trip with Lauren Part 2
Since I’m traveling to China with Lauren alone, I needed to repack my suitcases because now I can only bring two big ones instead of four. It proved to be a big challenge. As a result, quite a few of Lauren’s toys didn’t make it to China. The suitcases were filled with diapers, wet wipes, canned baby food, baby medicine and toys. It was a struggle to keep each suitcase below the 50 pounds limit.
On the day of the trip, which was really just the next day, a friend with a van came over to drive me to the airport. I was actually unsure about the whole thing, and the thought of cancelling the trip came through my mind couple of times.
After praying about it, I decided to take on the challenge of bringing Lauren to China myself.
The flight was at 2:45pm, and we left my house at 10:45am. I strapped Lauren securely into her car-seat. She seemed to be happy, actually, she’s happy whenever she’s out of the house. I then loaded the two big suitcases, a small carry on, her diaper bag, and her stroller onto the van.
BTW, I just want to mention the stroller. I bought it specifically for this trip, and intend to leave it with her in China. The model I bought was the
The drive to the airport was uneventful. Cosmo Ex Merlot Stroller, which turned out to be a great stroller to use in the airport and for general day to day usage. It’s basically an upscale umbrella stroller but with some very nice features. For more detail, read my Amazon review on it by following the link above.
But I digress.
The trip to the airport was uneventful, traffic was light, and the mood was good in general. Lauren shouted quite a few times, she’s very vocal nowadays, trying to prepare for her language development I assume. Our friend, who drove the van, got startled when he first heard her shouting, it was kind of funny.
Check-in was pretty easy, although there were quite a few folks in line already, JY and my mom brought Lauren to a seating area to feed her and change her while I waited in-line. It took me around 30 minutes to check-in.
I asked about the bassinet that I ordered for Lauren at the check-in counter, and was told that I should have ordered the hanging one because it’s much bigger. My problem was that when I first ordered the bassinet, I was put into non-bulkhead seat, so the bassinet I ordered was the floor model. On the 747-400 I was traveling on, only two bulkhead rolls can have hanging bassinet, and although I changed myself to a bulkhead row couple of weeks ago, I didn’t change to the bulkhead rows that have that feature. The problem was, I was never told about this before I arrived at the airport. I actually called United a few times to change things, and every time I was told I’ll get a bassinet for Lauren, but the difference between the bassinet was not explained to me.
This has just made my trip much more difficult, because the floor bassinet can only hold a baby up to 6-months. Well, I was at the airport, and there was no turning back.
To be continued.
My China trip with Lauren Part 1
JY and I decided to send Lauren to China to live with her maternal grandparents for awhile.
It was not an easy decision to make, as you can well imagine.
I’ve grown used to waking up to her cries, seeing her in the morning, and her big smiles when I get home.
JY and I have quite a few things to do before we bring Lauren back. We need to sell our current house, buy a new house in a neighborhood with better schools, maybe for JY to work closer to where I work, and prepare for Lauren #2.
We could’ve done all these while Lauren’s still here, but it would be much harder. Plus, her grandparents adore her, and they were the ones suggested that they take care of her while we get our house in order.
We originally planned for JY and I to bring Lauren back to Shanghai together. However, JY developed a severe case of stomach flu the day before our scheduled departure, and she had to stay home to get some blood work done.
So I took on the responsibility of bringing Lauren to China myself.
To Be Continued.
Got a new cellphone
I’ve been having problems lately with my trusted LG VX6000 from Verizon. It’s a great phone, the camera is a bit limited (no flash, VGA only), although I really enjoy using it.
Lately though, the battery charger has been acting up, the red light keeps on flashing and won’t keep a charge. I needed to periodically took out the battery and replace it in order to get the charger to work with it again.
I finally decided to get a new phone, and found out from Verizon that I have a new-every-two discount credit that I can use toward a new cellphone.
I went shopping. There were quite a few new phones on the market, the ones I had my eyes on were the LG VX8300, the LG VX8500 (Chocolate), and the Motorola KRZR K1m.
I checked my favorite source for Cell Phones, Howard Forums. It seemed that the chocolate was too prune to scratches, and I don’t really need a mp3 phone since I already have couple of mp3 players that suit me just fine.
If I were to select my next cellphone by looks, I probably would have gone with the KRZR, which looked very elegant. However, it’s about $150 more than the cost of the VX8300, and it’s faceplate is a magnet for finger prints. There were also some concerns regarding its reception.
I finally settled on the VX8300. So far, it’s been a great phone, battery life is good, reception is much better than my VX6000. I’m still waiting for my Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth Headset with Multipoint Technology (one of THE best bt headset there is) and a SanDisk 1GB MicroSD Card.
Hopefully they’ll make my VX8300 even better with the new ringtones and animations I put on phone.
Until next time.