Thunderstorms in the Midwest means ...

Travel delayed until tomorrow. The flight to Chi-town was delayed by an hour, which meant I'd miss the connection to the Hong Kong flight. Many minutes and phone calls later (looking for connections through San Fran, LA, Vancouver, Toronto, Newark, JFK, LaGuardia), I realized that the earliest I could get there was a day later anyway. So, tomorrow I'll start out at 3:30 and take the flight to San Fran, then the direct over to Hong Kong. On the plus side, rented a vehicle from Budget and rode back to Topeka in class in a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. The nice man at the counter, after hearing our plight, even lowered the rate. Now I have time to take in a movie with the fam ... Might see Captain America, since that one won't be opening in China anytime soon.

Departing for the East

With much packing still to go, I'm excited about this assignment. Have secured all of the necessary paperwork to enter into China and work for the 4 months ... and learned a lot about how to take a great passport photo. To secure the paperwork, I had to provide twelve photos that then were hand-delivered with the forms to the government buildings in Hong Kong. Thankfully, our consulting company(Fragoman) had the required expertise and made it all happen.
Once I'm in Shenzhen, I'll need to reside there for three weeks, have a physical exam (cough, cough), and secure a residence permit before I am allowed to go to other areas within China (like Hong Kong, Beijing, etc). Let the adventure begin!