China - Day 1

So this blog title is called China Day 1, but it could also rightfully be called China day 2, considering that I lost my entire Thursday in 14 hours. Thomas picked Nate and I up bright and early at 5am, and we made it uneventfully to Chicago. Likewise, in Chicago, we made a beautiful transition to the flight to China. Now, I've been dreading this flight ever since we made it because the last time I was on a plane for any length of time, I was miserable because I couldn't sleep and time just went by so slow - and that flight was half as long as this was going to be! However, between naps (thank you anti nausea pills!), chatting with my aislemate (a grade student about to graduate from Rice), reading about Shanghai, and watching 21 and Be Kind Rewind, I managed to not go bonkers. At some future point when I can get my own laptop on the internet, I'll post pictures from our trip, as it was completely not what I expected. We wound up flying over Canada, across what I assume is/were the Bering Straights (history class, dont fail me now), on into Russia, possibly through mongolia, and eventually into China. I've got some awesome pictures (or at least i think so) of melting ice flows before hitting russia and of hte plains in russia/mongolia.

Eventually, many hours later (note: there was never "night" on my flight, which threw mefor a loop), we arrive in Shanghai. Nate and I have some issues initially because we don't have Nate's cousin's address (Fei Fei) or phone number. Anyways, we didn't think we'd have a problem, so we went ahead and tried to go through customs to see what would happen. Well, we sounded pretty stupid when we didn't know her address or phone number, nor hte name of hte company where she worked, so Nate used the last of Sean's phone's minutes to call his mom. Thankfully, she gave him the phone number within the 2 minutes we had and that satisfied the customs woman. After that, we went through the "Nothing to declare aisle" since 1 wine bottle and 1 bottle of crown for 2 people were below the limits that we needed to declare. At this point, we make it to the place where people meet and greet the travelers, and we met up with Miao Miao (not sure how to spell) and Mrs Liu, Nate's other cousin and Fei Fei's Mom, respectively. I was quite suprised because the second I walk up, Miao Miao hands me this HUGE bouquet of lily's, saying "welcome and these are for you." I'll have to post a picture of it iwht my standing beside it. Huge is an understatement.

Anyways, nate and i are a little confused ebcause we thought Fei Fei was goign to pick us up, but apparently she had an important business meeting that day, so her mom and cousin took us to her place to change out of clothes and relax until she got home. I'm sure everyone has that first "suprising" moment whenever they go to another country that is something inherent to hte culture that you just never thought about before and i guess suprises you. That happened to me in the car on the way to the apartment, when Mrs. Liu sprayed sunscreen onto Miao Miao's arm without any warning at all, or at least that I noticed. Nate had to then explain to me that dark skin was a sign of lower class in China because it meant you worked outside in lower jobs, which I thought was hilarious because in whitey america, if you don't have a tan, you're a social outcast.

Anyways, we get to Fei Fei's house to wait. Needless to say, I've never had so much green tea poured down me before (awesome hospitality). Around 7, Fei Fei made it home, and we all got ready for dinner. At this point, i see that it's a reasonable time of day on the other side of the earth and give my parents a buzz, but nate used all the minutes before hand, so my dad called me back to verify that I got there. And then we left for dinner. At this point, I'm tired and hungry, so i was excited to see where they were taking us. Apparently, it was a western style restaurant, to ease nate and i into the cuisine. We park at this parking garage and walk through this HUGE, weird shopping mall. I only say weird because it's not like any other shopping mall I've been in - there's a couple of bottom floors that only lead to super markets, but hte top floor is filled with kind of legit as well as knock off stores. I'll be honest, there were a lot of bright and shiny lights and a lot of people to look at that I was a little shocked. Up until that time, I hadn't relaly seen anything *that* out of hte ordinary, excepting a TON of bicycles and 3 KFC's in a row separated by only one shop. Everything i saw could have been found in America, more or less, if only you took out the chinese characters and put in english translations.

Anyways, we walk out of hte mall and down the road towards the restaurant. we walk in, and none of the waiters speak to us in english. At this point, I'm wondering how "western" this restaurant is. Eventually, we're seated, and we get one menu to look at, and this menu is chock full of asian food, and only a few of hte items have english translations. This kind of made me laugh on the inside because that certainly isn't "western" food, but apparently they took us there because it's hte healthy style of asian food, kind of like the whole foods of China, in restaurant form. Oh my goodness, I am so full. And hte tea (made with honey) was absolutely delicious. We also discussed our itenerary for hte rest of our trip, and I think it will be as follows:
-Sat, Sun = Shanghai
-Mon-Wed = Beijing
-Thurs = Shanghai
-Fri-Sat = Wuxi
-Sun-Mon = Suzhou
-Tues = Nanjing
-Wed-Thurs = Hangzhou
-Fri = fly home

I'm home now, sitting on a cot, looking out hte window on the 14th floor of a residential building in Shanghai overlooking a couple of quiet streets. It's amazing to think that I'm *finally actually* here. It's not where I expected I'd take my next big trip, and I'm not upset that I made that decision. I've been avoiding thinking about leaving work and having to start school in the fall, and for now, I'm just going to enjoy myself. Now, my next task will be falling asleep on a bed without sheets, as is commonplace in Shanghai during the summer, apparently.

Buenas Noches!