Our First Full Day in China

Sorry it has taken me so long to post anything. The delay in getting here from Detroit, the lack of sleep on the 15-hour flight, the extreme time change, and non-stop movement since we have been here has really knocked me for a loop. When we got here (on Thursday morning in Shanghai) after the wacky delay in Detroit), many in the group were still wearing the same clothes they started with early Tuesday morning. Nevertheless, we were already on the go -- I am sure Tony already told all about it. We finally managed to beg for 30 minutes to check into the hotel for shower time. We rushed back out for hours more activities, by the end of which most of us were snoozing.

We started again bright and early yesterday -- Friday morning here in Shanghai. Breakfast included things like bacon (which did NOT look like bacon), breakfast intestinal (something more like sausage), frittata (boiled eggs), fried rice, french fries, soups, fried eggs, some fruits, red tea, juice and coffee. Watching the students examine some of the more unusual breakfast offerings was a treat. Then, off again to the Jade Buddha Temple (including a Buddha tea ceremony where many of us bought lots of tea). The Chinese lady demonstrating the different teas at our table spoke no English, but she made very clear to all of us that she thought I needed the tea that helps you lose weight. She kept making motions that indicated this. I bought the tea that helps you wake. She did NOT win me over with her selling technique.

Next, we visited the Shanghai Museum. which houses one of the most important collections of Chinese artifacts in the country. Its 11 galleries contain historic artifacts that range from ancient bronzes and sculpture to Ming and Qing-dynasty furniture and includes exceptional examples of painting and calligraphy. Tony enjoyed looking at the old money and coins, but I really liked looking at the old furniture.

We also visited the Yu Yuan Garden. It was so fantastically beautiful and peaceful. There were lots of tour groups there while we were there, but I asked our tour guide if ordinary Chinese go there often just to enjoy it because it is so fabulous, and he said many go there just to meditate. I hope to find more time later to tell about it.

We spend a lot of time racing from place to place and then lots of time eating. So far, all of our lunches and dinners have been served family-style on lazy-susan type tables. China is not a place for picky eaters or people who are afraid to eat things they do not recognize. Fortunately, we do not have many picky eaters in the group, and I think we are largely over-stuffed. Our tour guide is making sure we all have plenty of fresh water to drink (although I would enjoy a TaB or even a Diet Coke right now), but no one is sick, and we are all well, yet exhausted. We are leaving Shanghai today to head to Suzhou. Once we get to Suzhou, I hope to find some time to tell you more about Friday's activities as well as today's. That said, check-out is looming, and I must run.

Just know we are well, and we are seeing a lot and learning a lot, and the students are really learning how to bargain in the markets. They are going to come home with some interesting items and even more interesting stories.

An Unexpected Sleepover in Detroit

Sorry about the sketchy nature of this report, but Joanie and I are both exhausted.  We promise to post more complete entries going forward.

Our group arrived safely in Shanghai at about 10:30 AM local time, which is 12 hours' difference from US Eastern time.  Our flight was delayed 16 hours due to a mechanical problem, which we are certainly grateful that they discovered on the ground instead of at 33,000 feet. They put us up at various motels near the airport and gave us $50 spending vouchers each, so no complaints from me.

I can't speak for Joanie, but our flight over was very interesting for several reasons:

Airlines usually take a "great circle" route on long-distance flights.  If you picked up a piece of string to make a straight line on a globe between two cities on different continents, chances are that line would look very different than a straight line you would draw on a flat map.  But the string line using the globe would be the shorter route, and often (for flights in the Northern hemisphere) the route will take the plane much further north than one would normally think necessary.  Our flight from Detroit to Shanghai took us to within less than one degree of the North Pole (89 degrees, 6 minutes north latitude to be exact, according to the flight tracker).  By my rough calculations this meant we were only about sixty miles from the Pole.  When we reached that point Joanie yelled out the window, "HEY SANTA!  WHY DIDN'T I GET THAT BIKE I WANTED WHEN I WAS NINE YEARS OLD, YOU &%$#&*@#!  No doubt Mrs. Claus' ears turned red from the invective.  So much for the Delicate Southern Flower award.  Unfortunately there was too much cloud cover to see anything, which seemed to be the case for just about the entire flight.  Was all of the Northern Hemisphere cloudy today?

Another source of amusement on the flight was watching the flight tracker map as our plane crossed into Russian airspace, traveling south from the Arctic Ocean and crossing the north Siberian coast.  Watching it on the map (with the little airplane icon) kind of reminded me of the scene in "Dr. Strangelove" when the "big board" in the War Room shows the B-52s in General Ripper's bomb wing approaching their targets in the Soviet Union.  "General Turgidson, how soon did you say the planes would penetrate Russian radar cover?"  "About, uh, eighteen minutes from now, sir..."

I also got a kick out of the fact that we flew directly over Lake Baikal, in eastern Siberia not far from Mongolia, and that I was able to catch a brief glimpse of it.  Lake Baikal holds several records-it is the oldest (25 million years), deepest (over 5,000 feet deep at it deepest point), and largest lake in the world in terms of volume.  One or two of the Great Lakes may cover a larger surface area but no freshwater lake holds more water.  Lake Baikal has 20% of the world's unfrozen fresh water.

The North Pole and Lake Baikal in one day-not a bad haul.

Anyway, things have gone pretty smoothly since we arrived.  It was surprisingly easy to go through Chinese immigration/customs, our guide and bus were waiting for us, and we had no trouble getting to downtown Shanghai.  We had a family-style lunch (served with both forks and chopsticks-I think all of us opted for the chopsticks) that was, to me, somewhat similar to what you might get at a Chinese restaurant in the US-rice with egg, egg drop soup, sweet and sour chicken, beef and peppers, bok choy, etc.  The amount of food was quite a lot considering that it was lunch.  The one item at lunch that I don't think most of us have seen before was a fish complete with head and tail (although the head was cut off and placed on the serving plate separately).  I didn't try it (I don't like my food staring back at me), but it looked like a sweet and sour type dish.  Joanie, ever the adventurous eater, tried part of the tail.

We then attended a tea tasting that everyone seemed to enjoy, including me, although I am not much of a tea drinker.  After that we checked into our hotel.  I opted to stay at the hotel and sleep, but Joanie joined the rest of the crowd for a visit to the Botanical Garden, followed by dinner (which Joanie reports was similar to lunch) and a circus-type acrobat show.  Up at 6 AM Friday for some new adventures, for which your humble correspondent will turn over the keyboard to Joanie to report.

The Journey is About to Begin

We leave for China in less than 24 hours, and we have already encountered our first (and we hope only) glitch.

Every trip generally presents us with the chance to use one of our UHON mottos, which is "flexibility." Well, last night near midnight, as Tony and I traveled home from South Carolina, I received a series of emails informing me that because of illness, Dr. Guo will not be accompanying us on our trip. Dr. Guo was the only member of our travel party who speaks Chinese, so now we will be traveling to China as a group with no one in the group who speaks Chinese except for a freshman who took Chinese in high school and a little in her first year of college. This promises to be a true adventure!

Nevertheless, we are confident the folks at Nanjing University will make sure that we have English-speaking tour guides to look out for us and to keep us out of trouble.

We are are learning basic phrases that should help us with basic needs, and I am certain we will have some great stories. Please feel free to share the blog with other friends and family. In the meantime, remember that English-speaking blogs are blocked in China, so a friend of ours in Dalton, Georgia will be making our posts for us after we email him our activities. Ideally, he can also email us any questions you have.