I'm in China!

Well here I am in China! I had a good trip over with not many troubles. I left Tulsa on time and headed to Dallas. I had a very short layover, just long enough to grab a sandwich and get to my gate. Then I started in on my long flight. It was about 13 hours if my memory seres me correct. We flew up over the midwest US and up over the lower part of Alaska and down to Japan, landing in Tokyo. Once I was in Japan I had a bit of an adventure! I went through security only to find out that I have to go back out and get my boarding pass! So I head back out and they have trouble getting it but after a bit of a wait I'm back through security on my way to the gate to wait for my next and last flight. Body time was at this time 1:0o am but it was 3:00 pm local time! I sure wanted to curl up and sleep for a while. My next flight was really good. There were not many people on the plane so I was able to stretch out a bit and sleep some. (Me in Tokyo)

I landed in Shanghai at 6:00 pm local time which was 4:00 am body time. (I quit keeping up after this..it was to much for my poor tired brain!) I got through the health inspection fine and then customs. I had not a bit of trouble either place and it was faster than any other customs that I have been through. I the picked up my luggage and headed out to find Wade and Leah. They were not there when I came out, so I found a good place and waited. After a 30 min wait they came running towards me and oh! it was great to see them! We made our way back to the Hostel by way of the MagLiv train, subway, and foot. I was so ready to be still and unwind a bit and get some sleep. It was about 11:00 when we all finally stopped chatting and went to bed.

Right, the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the subway in Shanghai.

The next day, (I woke up really early) we went to the Shanghai Museum. We started the day with breakfast of youhurt and fruit. It was not very filling so we kept an eye out for some street food. We found some along the walk to the museum. It was a bread of some sort with egg and bacon. They cooked the bread flat and then made an egg the same size and stuck them together with bacon in the middle. It was really yummy! We had a good time at the museum. We were there about 5 hours. There was a variety of different things: Jade, Chinese money, furniture, porcelain, painting, and writing to name a few. They all had their own room and everything was dated in time line form so you could see how things changed with each Dynasty.

Above, breakfast, right, a porcelain canteen.

After we were done with that at about 3:00 I was ready for bed! I felt like I had been up all night! We headed off to a Western Mexican place for dinner, Peter's Tex Mex. We traveled by taxi and subway. That was the first of many taxi rides in China. It was not to bad, apparently the lines are not hardly ever even used here! The food was good, and we had a great time just talking and telling funny stories.

We caught a taxi back to the subway and then walked the the Hostel to finally sleep! I slept like a great fat log! I felt so much better the next day!

Thursday we headed out to the Yuynan Garden. It was in an old part of Shanghai. We did some shopping as we walked along. Yuynan Garden was an old garden with some old Chinese buildings. It was beautiful even if it was cold and trying to rain! We spent some time looking at it all but had to make it a short visit so we could get to the train station on time. We ate at KFC (yes, I eat more at KFC when I am not in the US) and walked quickly back to the hostel and picked up our luggage. We then hauled all 128 lbs of my stuff back through the subway to the train station.

I have never traveled by train. In fact the last train I was on was years ago when we went to Silver Dollar City! This was going to (and turned out to be) a grand adventure! I was looking forward to the train ride...but maybe not 18 hours of it! We were on a sleeper train, there were beds stacked three high and 22 rows. The only place to sit was on the bottom bunk. Leah had a bottom bunk and Wade and I had middle, all in different rows. We got settled in and waited for the trip to begin. We started off and watched the sights of Shanghai disappear behind us. We got to know a little boy, Daniel and his mom. His English was pretty good and we talked some about our names and how old we were. We got some dinner of rice and meat and veggies. It was pretty good for train food. I got really tired after that (big surprise I know!) and headed to my bunk to read for a while and then sleep. Reading lasted for about oh, maybe 5 min and then I zonked out for a while. I woke up several times but over all for riding on a train I slept pretty good. The bunks are really narrow and I could never curl up so my legs got to cramping up on me. I finally got tired of lying straight as a board and sat up and read for a while and then stitched on my cross stitching and watched the countryside go by. We got to Changda at about 11:45 or there about, caught a taxi home and proceeded to carry my 128 lbs of stuff up 6 stories! In the last four days I have only walked about 5 miles and climbed oh, maybe 200+ stairs. We are not just doing whatever and trying to not freeze while waiting for the heat to catch up.

We will be here for a few days and then head off to Xi'an for a few days next week. I'll talk to you later! =)