Other than the earthquake, we're having a good time with mom and Paul. They came back from Qingdao on the 8th and are leaving for home today. We'll miss them!
Let's see...what did we do... oh okay we had a full body massage, and everybody, especially John was so sore the next day. I guess they were too hard on us. We watched Iron Man in a nice theater and had a nice dinner afterwards. We went to the knock-off stores and mom bought John some North Face jackets, very nice ones. It's always fun to go into those stores.
If you (meaning you with foreign faces) walk on the busiest road, Nanjing Road in Shanghai, people would come to you and ask you "you wanna Rolex, Gucci, Addidas, NorthFace?". If you show any interest, they'd take you to one of those back allies and go into a store. After they make sure no cops are around, they'd open the hidden door on the wall and take you into their "real" business. They have all the knock-off products you could ever want. The bargaining is fun, too. For a two-piece Northface jacket, they'd ask for 600 US dollars. And you just shake your head, laugh, and tell them "ya kidding me?" then offer them 50 dollars. Usually you can get them for about 60 bucks. And they are actually very nice quality jackets. I mean who can tell a knock-off from a real one?
Paul also got some very nice Chinese paintings for a good bargain. Mom got some pearls, of course and she got me a pretty red coral necklace since I don't wear pearls all that much.
Yesterday after the earthquake episode, we went to the Shanghai Museum and had Beijing Duck for dinner. After climbing down 35 flights of stairs, we felt a need for a good foot massage, and so we did. It cost 10 bucks for the four of us to get an one-hour long foot massage. We felt better afterwards.
Here're some of our pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/OldTownTempleAndMotherSDay
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/ShanghaiMuseumAndBeijingDuck
爱上我的家
Monday, May 12, 2008
Earthquake Day
You might have heard there was a 7.8 earthquake in a province southern China at 2:28pm yesterday. At about 2:40pm we were in a meeting on the 35th floor of a skyscraper in Shanghai (about 1000 miles away), everyone in the room started to feel very dizzy. We soon realized that the building was actually moving. Along with thousands of other people we ran down the stairs. When we got down we saw that some of the other buildings had emptied, but not all of them...which was odd. Rumors quickly spread that it wasn't an earthquake but the government had simulated a terrorist attack by pumping gas into the buildings to make us dizzy (lol, people are funny).
So far the news says that there are 10,000 expected dead, and at least 900 kids injured and possibly dead in a collapsed high school along with more kids in 2 other collapsed schools (who's building these schools!?).
Just want everyone to know that we're okay. I was so glad John and I were together when it happened. Cellphones were all out of service. I couldn't have possibly got in touch with him if we weren't together. We had a little taste of what it was like when the Twin Towers were hit. It made us so grateful to get out of there safely.
We're sad about people in Sichuan. Please be prayerful about them.
So far the news says that there are 10,000 expected dead, and at least 900 kids injured and possibly dead in a collapsed high school along with more kids in 2 other collapsed schools (who's building these schools!?).
Just want everyone to know that we're okay. I was so glad John and I were together when it happened. Cellphones were all out of service. I couldn't have possibly got in touch with him if we weren't together. We had a little taste of what it was like when the Twin Towers were hit. It made us so grateful to get out of there safely.
We're sad about people in Sichuan. Please be prayerful about them.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
May Day Holiday
May Day Holiday is also known as Labor's Day in China. People usually get the first week in May off for this national holiday and go traveling to different places.
John and I flew to Qingdao to meet his parents there. We spent the day there, visiting friends and going to the tailor's. My best friend from college Julia came all the way from her hometown Weifang (which is about 3 hours drive from Qingdao) to see John and I. She brought us so many gifts that we don't know how to take them back to the US. John got a summer suit made. It cost us 50 something US dollars. Mom and Paul also got some stuff made. We'll show you pictures later.
The next day, we took a bus to go to my house. The 3-hour long bus ride turns out to be not so pleasant. The bus is old and shaggy and the driver honks every time he passes other cars, which turns out to be every 2 minutes. And China's having a shortage on diesel because the driver had to stop at three places before he could spend his money on gas. Mom tries to tell him it'd use more gas to honk the horn, but I didn't think the idea got crossed.
But we made it and got home where my almost-whole extended family were waiting to meet the parents. Mom cooked up a feast and we never stopped eating for the rest of the time we were there.
About 30 or more people showed up to see John and his parents. They just stared at them and talked away. Mostly things like, "oh they look nice." "oh they have very white skin, so pretty..." "Oh John looks like his mom a lot." "Look, John's joking around with his mother..." Ya know, things like that. And of course, everybody, especially my 90-year-old grandma keeps telling them to take care of me and keeps saying how thankful they were that I married into a nice family. Well I did. John gave grandma a little massage, which made her so happy. He spoke a lot more Chinese this time, which made everyone so impressed, especially my parents. They know now there is hope :-)
We went back to Qingdao and played on the beach. It was a nice day. For dinner we called up an old friend of mine, Jim Ely (I know him through Max and Deanna) and he recommended this nice little German restaurant. We met my cousin Megan and her boyfriend there and had a very nice German dinner. We're trying to help Megan to get into BYU to get an MBA degree.
We flew back to Shanghai the next morning and went straight to our training meeting at the Berlitz school. We're expecting John's parents to arrive tomorrow. We'll spent several days together in Shanghai and then they'll be on their way home.
Summer's definitely in Shanghai. We're wearing short sleeves and still sweating.
Here's a link to some of our pictures from our trip.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/MayDayHoliday
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Blog Unblocked
You may have noticed that its been a long time since this blog was updated. Well for some reason China had this site blocked. We could get to it, but not with out going to some trouble. However yesterday we happened to go to a friends blog and found out that it was no longer blocked. Now that we don't have any excuses we should be a lot more regular in our blogging activities.
My parents are in China right now. They're hanging out with a friend of mine in Xian right now. We're planning to go meet them in Qingdao (Sherry's home) for the May day holiday. After that they will be coming back to Shanghai to stay with us for a week before they head back to the US. We should be getting so good pictures to put up from those trips.
Sherry and I were just hired on at the Berlitz school here in Shanghai. Training was supposed to start last week, but it hasn't yet. They claim they are waiting for materials, but I thinks it a conspiracy to keep us poor.
We've just been able to start watching conference online, so nobody tell me how it ends!
My parents are in China right now. They're hanging out with a friend of mine in Xian right now. We're planning to go meet them in Qingdao (Sherry's home) for the May day holiday. After that they will be coming back to Shanghai to stay with us for a week before they head back to the US. We should be getting so good pictures to put up from those trips.
Sherry and I were just hired on at the Berlitz school here in Shanghai. Training was supposed to start last week, but it hasn't yet. They claim they are waiting for materials, but I thinks it a conspiracy to keep us poor.
We've just been able to start watching conference online, so nobody tell me how it ends!
Monday, February 25, 2008
New Year Trip to My Home
The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, takes place on the first day of the year based on the lunar calender, which is usually in February according to the solar calender. It is a time for family reunion and a time to remember your ancestors. It's been five years since I've been home for the holiday. I really missed the festivity of the holiday. This year, John and I happened to be in China. Even though we only had 3 days off work, we decided to fly home. John was nervous to meet my family, he won't admit that, but I can feel his tension :-) But my folks weren't too hard on him.
There were lots of new year activities. We missed the month-long food preparation part for sure. By the time we got home, my dad has already had the spring couplets up. These are the red paper on the doors with writings on them. The one on our door this year says Good Luck Everyday, Big Fortune Every Year.
There are endless meals with all sorts of food. Lots of what I would consider delicacy appears as weird food to John :-) For example, my mom got out a box of delicacy which consists of two pig tails, one pig tongue, half a pig head, a pig heart, and of course a liver. And we had to go to different relatives to eat dinner as tradition goes. My favorite aunt prepared some fried cicadas for me, and John refused to kiss me for a long time after I ate a plate of those :-)
John likes my mom's big wok to cook dumplings in. The wok also serve as a heater to heat up my concrete bed. At night my mom would leave coal in the burner so my bed would keep warm. We kept sweating the whole night. Even though my mom put layers and layers of bedding on our bed, John still got a sore back after sleeping on it for three days.
Worshiping ancestors is a big part of the festival. My grandma and John set up the worship table and put lots of food on it. My dad had to light up the incense and candles after the table's set. Then he would burn some paper money in the courtyard. Hopefully my ancestors would have a good 2008.
At midnight we got up to set off the firecrackers. John woke up and told me he had a dream that he's in Iraq because the fireworks were so freaking loud and were going on continuously throughout the night!
I hope you are not bored by now. Maybe I'll talk about more later :-)
Here's a link to more pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/SherrySParentSHome2008
There were lots of new year activities. We missed the month-long food preparation part for sure. By the time we got home, my dad has already had the spring couplets up. These are the red paper on the doors with writings on them. The one on our door this year says Good Luck Everyday, Big Fortune Every Year.
There are endless meals with all sorts of food. Lots of what I would consider delicacy appears as weird food to John :-) For example, my mom got out a box of delicacy which consists of two pig tails, one pig tongue, half a pig head, a pig heart, and of course a liver. And we had to go to different relatives to eat dinner as tradition goes. My favorite aunt prepared some fried cicadas for me, and John refused to kiss me for a long time after I ate a plate of those :-)
John likes my mom's big wok to cook dumplings in. The wok also serve as a heater to heat up my concrete bed. At night my mom would leave coal in the burner so my bed would keep warm. We kept sweating the whole night. Even though my mom put layers and layers of bedding on our bed, John still got a sore back after sleeping on it for three days.
Worshiping ancestors is a big part of the festival. My grandma and John set up the worship table and put lots of food on it. My dad had to light up the incense and candles after the table's set. Then he would burn some paper money in the courtyard. Hopefully my ancestors would have a good 2008.
At midnight we got up to set off the firecrackers. John woke up and told me he had a dream that he's in Iraq because the fireworks were so freaking loud and were going on continuously throughout the night!
I hope you are not bored by now. Maybe I'll talk about more later :-)
Here's a link to more pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/SherrySParentSHome2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Our apt in Shanghai
We decided to upload some pictures of out apt in Shanghai so some of you don't have to worry that we are sleeping on the street :-)
Due to the snow storm here, lots of cities are out of power. The government has been calling for people on TV to turn off their heaters and turn down all the facilities that use power. John said he couldn't read so we could ignore the notices :-) We hope they won't cut our power cuz we'll be frozen to death before too long.
We got our tickets to go to my home for the Chinese New Year (sorry Judson, even though the Koreans celebrate it too, we still call it the Chinese new year because they got it from us :-) Just kidding). My parents are so excited to meet their new foreign son-in-law, which made John nervous. The village president told my mom he'd send his driver to pick us up from the airport. I think it's a big deal that I married an American. I hope John doesn't punch people in their faces when they come to my house and admire him :-) I'll have to watch him real close.
Here's the link to pictures of our apt.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/OurAptInShanghai
We love all of you. Stay warm!
Due to the snow storm here, lots of cities are out of power. The government has been calling for people on TV to turn off their heaters and turn down all the facilities that use power. John said he couldn't read so we could ignore the notices :-) We hope they won't cut our power cuz we'll be frozen to death before too long.
We got our tickets to go to my home for the Chinese New Year (sorry Judson, even though the Koreans celebrate it too, we still call it the Chinese new year because they got it from us :-) Just kidding). My parents are so excited to meet their new foreign son-in-law, which made John nervous. The village president told my mom he'd send his driver to pick us up from the airport. I think it's a big deal that I married an American. I hope John doesn't punch people in their faces when they come to my house and admire him :-) I'll have to watch him real close.
Here's the link to pictures of our apt.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/OurAptInShanghai
We love all of you. Stay warm!
Vagas
I don't think we ever posted about our Vagas trip. I don't have to work today so I decided to make it up. Mom got us a room at the Stratosphere so we could spend a night in Vagas and go to the airport in the morning. After we said goodbye to them in the hotel, we decided to go find the M&M factory cuz I've always wanted to go there.
We didn't realize it'd took us 2 hours to walk there. It's on the very end of the Strip. By the time we got there, we were both beat. When we were coming back, we decided to go eat. We found a Seafood Buffet for only $15 dollars with the coupon someone handed to us on the street.
When we got there, we found out that we had to be a registered member to use that coupon. So we did. And they gave us four cute snowman plates for registering. Guess what? I carried those four snowman plates all the way to Shanghai. Now they are the fanciest kitchen ware in my kitchen :-)
We got on the shuttle in the morning to the airport. Everything went well. We got on the plane without any problem. The plane we were on from Vagas to Vancouver was fancy, with individual TVs on each seat. You can watch movies and TV shows. John got to sit in the Exit row, too. However, the plane from Vancouver to Shanghai wasn't so good. John was really sad!
I slept the whole way as always while John finished his Harry Potter book!
The end.
Here's a link to our pictures from Vagas.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/Vegas2007
Enjoy*-*
We didn't realize it'd took us 2 hours to walk there. It's on the very end of the Strip. By the time we got there, we were both beat. When we were coming back, we decided to go eat. We found a Seafood Buffet for only $15 dollars with the coupon someone handed to us on the street.
When we got there, we found out that we had to be a registered member to use that coupon. So we did. And they gave us four cute snowman plates for registering. Guess what? I carried those four snowman plates all the way to Shanghai. Now they are the fanciest kitchen ware in my kitchen :-)
We got on the shuttle in the morning to the airport. Everything went well. We got on the plane without any problem. The plane we were on from Vagas to Vancouver was fancy, with individual TVs on each seat. You can watch movies and TV shows. John got to sit in the Exit row, too. However, the plane from Vancouver to Shanghai wasn't so good. John was really sad!
I slept the whole way as always while John finished his Harry Potter book!
The end.
Here's a link to our pictures from Vagas.
http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/Vegas2007
Enjoy*-*
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Snowy weather
Has the weather here made the news much over there? Currently we have over 2 million stranded passengers who were on their way home for spring festival, and thats just in Guangzhou. A couple days ago there were 400 thousand in Shanghai. They are mostly migrant workers who have no where to stay here while their job sites are closed for the holiday. The government has opened schools as shelters and is providing basic food and health care. Everyone is being encouraged to just get a refund for their train tickets, but a lot of people refuse to give up on going home for the holiday. For people like the migrant workers, this is the only time they are able to see their families all year. Here in Shanghai we got about 1-2 inces of slush. It didn't cause too much trouble in Shanghai. The biggest problems were further south where they had ice storms that destroyed power grids that supported the train systems. I haven't heard many details, but there are a lot of people in some southern provinces that have been without electricity for days, and will continue to be without it for at least a few more. It has been over 50 years since Southern China had a snow storm that was anything like this. The numbers they report are so huge its hard to keep track of. So many peoples houses have collapsed due to the weight of the snow and ice, and the damage estimate just keeps climbing.
In spite of all this we are going to be traveling to Sherry's home. We are flying out Wednesday the 6th at 10am. We're headed north into the sunshine. The weather is supposed to calm down a couple of days before we leave and its supposed to be sunny the day we fly out.
In other news, Sherry is working hard teaching classes during the busy season of the winter holiday. We didn't know enough about the situation and didn't talk to the right people soon enough to be able to arrange for me to have classes for winter break. I have been once again reminded that no matter were you are business men are business men, and no matter what they would like you to think they are taking care of themselves...so we have do to the same.
I uploaded a few pictures from our first month here. http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/FirstMonthInChina
In spite of all this we are going to be traveling to Sherry's home. We are flying out Wednesday the 6th at 10am. We're headed north into the sunshine. The weather is supposed to calm down a couple of days before we leave and its supposed to be sunny the day we fly out.
In other news, Sherry is working hard teaching classes during the busy season of the winter holiday. We didn't know enough about the situation and didn't talk to the right people soon enough to be able to arrange for me to have classes for winter break. I have been once again reminded that no matter were you are business men are business men, and no matter what they would like you to think they are taking care of themselves...so we have do to the same.
I uploaded a few pictures from our first month here. http://picasaweb.google.com/HobblyJig/FirstMonthInChina
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Our Address
I finally remembered to get our zip code today. So for those who's been asking, here it is.
John and Sherry Carr
Building 1, Room 2606, Lane 270, Yutian Rd,
Hongkou District, Shanghai, China 200092
上海市虹口区玉田路２７０弄１号楼２６０６室 ２０００９２
If your computer displays Chinese, you can print the Chinese address off. If not, I'm pretty sure mail will get here with just an English address.
As winter break approaches, we will get busier, lots of classes to teach and lots of English corners to host. One cool thing is our school is in a huge skyscraper on the most famous street in Shanghai. It's called the Nanjing Road Walking Street, close to the Bund, if you know what that is. There are numerous shops on both sides of the street, old fashioned and modern ones. Lots of restaurants as well. We just discovered Burger King the other day. We also found an American store called City Market. They provide all kinds of expensive American grocery, even chips and salsa. We have to check it out soon.
For some reason John's been having a hard time falling asleep. He's never tired any more. He said that's because he's not exercising enough and work does not require physical labor. We'll have to find him a 24 fitness, or rather a martial art master soon so he could get some work-out.
We are getting more and more situated. We miss all of you and think about you all the time.
John and Sherry Carr
Building 1, Room 2606, Lane 270, Yutian Rd,
Hongkou District, Shanghai, China 200092
上海市虹口区玉田路２７０弄１号楼２６０６室 ２０００９２
If your computer displays Chinese, you can print the Chinese address off. If not, I'm pretty sure mail will get here with just an English address.
As winter break approaches, we will get busier, lots of classes to teach and lots of English corners to host. One cool thing is our school is in a huge skyscraper on the most famous street in Shanghai. It's called the Nanjing Road Walking Street, close to the Bund, if you know what that is. There are numerous shops on both sides of the street, old fashioned and modern ones. Lots of restaurants as well. We just discovered Burger King the other day. We also found an American store called City Market. They provide all kinds of expensive American grocery, even chips and salsa. We have to check it out soon.
For some reason John's been having a hard time falling asleep. He's never tired any more. He said that's because he's not exercising enough and work does not require physical labor. We'll have to find him a 24 fitness, or rather a martial art master soon so he could get some work-out.
We are getting more and more situated. We miss all of you and think about you all the time.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Life in Shanghai...
So we found out we could not get to our blog in Shanghai. Anything that's from blogspot.com is blocked. John has to find a way to go around it. Very not cool!
Anyway, because of that and hunting an apartment and figuring out our work schedule, we didn't have time to update our blog. Thank you for those who're concerned about us and tried to make sure we were still alive. Here's the update.
We found an apartment that's 106 square meters (you can figure out the footage), with two bedrooms, one living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. We love it because of its nice location. It's close to the subway stations and bus stops, about 5 or 6 stops to work (instead of 40!!). There's a big shopping center (Carrefour for those who know about it) next to us, with a KFC in it! There are many little restaurants and convenience stores, even a McDonald that delivers!! The apartment is well furnished. All we need now are some rugs for the bathroom floor. People don't have carpets or area rugs inＣｈｉｎa so it's hard to find any. We've been going to evening markets and no luck so far. We made it our goal to get one tomorrow during our lesson planning break.
We finally talked to the right person in the school today about our work schedules. Both of us will start teaching next week. I'll be teaching TOEFL speaking, listening, and writing. John will only be teaching speaking classes until the foreign teacher coordinator gets back from Beijing next week and assign him more classes. We both teach VIP classes, which is one teacher to one student, or five, or twenty. We like it better than the classes with 400 students.
Things are expensive here in Shanghai, no more expensive than the States but definitely more than other cities in China. We found our money going away faster than we thought it would. The so-called foreign products are especially expensive, such as cheese, butter, peanut butter & jelly, banana bread (which is crappy btw), etc. John's been trying to find real milk among hundreds of different brands. So far only one kind is close to real milk, according to him. I, on the other hand, am happy that I don't have to drink the 2% any more. To me, all the brands except those John likes are "real milk".
We've been on straight Chinese diet since we got here, except the KFC we had last night. I feel John's starving all the time and I'm losing lots of weight :-) But he said he's fine. So we'll see how much weight he loses, say in a month?!
We did find a nice massage place close to our apartment the other night and had a full body massage for a hour for 7 dollars. We didn't go for the cheap cheap stores because we would see a dozen half-naked girls waiting around in the stores. So we decided to pay more and be safe :-)
We've been to some tourist places in Shanghai, but it's been foggy since we got here, so we couldn't get great pictures. We'll have to go back again when it clears up and upload some pictures. We are glad to find out that we live close to many tourist places, even the famous Pearl Tower. We are still exploring the city...
We want all of you to know that we do miss you all, a lot. We love China, but we love America, too! We may be stressed at times, but most time we are happy. The Lord does watches over us!
We send you our love!
Anyway, because of that and hunting an apartment and figuring out our work schedule, we didn't have time to update our blog. Thank you for those who're concerned about us and tried to make sure we were still alive. Here's the update.
We found an apartment that's 106 square meters (you can figure out the footage), with two bedrooms, one living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. We love it because of its nice location. It's close to the subway stations and bus stops, about 5 or 6 stops to work (instead of 40!!). There's a big shopping center (Carrefour for those who know about it) next to us, with a KFC in it! There are many little restaurants and convenience stores, even a McDonald that delivers!! The apartment is well furnished. All we need now are some rugs for the bathroom floor. People don't have carpets or area rugs inＣｈｉｎa so it's hard to find any. We've been going to evening markets and no luck so far. We made it our goal to get one tomorrow during our lesson planning break.
We finally talked to the right person in the school today about our work schedules. Both of us will start teaching next week. I'll be teaching TOEFL speaking, listening, and writing. John will only be teaching speaking classes until the foreign teacher coordinator gets back from Beijing next week and assign him more classes. We both teach VIP classes, which is one teacher to one student, or five, or twenty. We like it better than the classes with 400 students.
Things are expensive here in Shanghai, no more expensive than the States but definitely more than other cities in China. We found our money going away faster than we thought it would. The so-called foreign products are especially expensive, such as cheese, butter, peanut butter & jelly, banana bread (which is crappy btw), etc. John's been trying to find real milk among hundreds of different brands. So far only one kind is close to real milk, according to him. I, on the other hand, am happy that I don't have to drink the 2% any more. To me, all the brands except those John likes are "real milk".
We've been on straight Chinese diet since we got here, except the KFC we had last night. I feel John's starving all the time and I'm losing lots of weight :-) But he said he's fine. So we'll see how much weight he loses, say in a month?!
We did find a nice massage place close to our apartment the other night and had a full body massage for a hour for 7 dollars. We didn't go for the cheap cheap stores because we would see a dozen half-naked girls waiting around in the stores. So we decided to pay more and be safe :-)
We've been to some tourist places in Shanghai, but it's been foggy since we got here, so we couldn't get great pictures. We'll have to go back again when it clears up and upload some pictures. We are glad to find out that we live close to many tourist places, even the famous Pearl Tower. We are still exploring the city...
We want all of you to know that we do miss you all, a lot. We love China, but we love America, too! We may be stressed at times, but most time we are happy. The Lord does watches over us!
We send you our love!
Friday, January 4, 2008
21 Hours of Pure Joy...
I'm back!
The second I got in the cab I knew I was back in China. I've never taken a cab in the states so I don't know about the, but here they all have a certain odor that you just can't get anywhere else. Something like stale cigarettes, and bad breath covered up by the same air freshener. Its really not that bad, just unique enough that it brought back a lot of memories of the last time I was here.
We left the hotel in Las Vegas at 4am on Jan 3rd. For the next 21 hours we chased the sun across the sky. Finally arriving in Shanghai at about 4pm Jan 4th (local time).
I love flying, but appearantly the airports don't love me. As has happened to me every time I've flown post 9-11 I was "randomly" chosen to go though extra security. Poor Sherry didn't know what she was getting when she married me. I did convince the TSA guy to tell me why I get to be the lucky guy every time. For some reason the airlines have me and anyone that flys with me on the non existent "no fly" list. He couldn't tell me why, but said I should write my senator because airlines were supposed to turn that stuff over to the TSA a long time ago, but haven't.
We had a great flight from LV to Vancouver. In fact it was probably the best flight of my life. The nice lady at check in managed to get my a seat in the emergency exit row. I had more leg room than I could use! It was like first class. The plane was state-of-the-art. It had an outlet for everyone, as well as a personal mutimedia system on the back of every seat. You could watch any of a few dozen movies, TV shows, News, or listen to music. I decided to sleep, and save th emovie watching for the second, longer, flight.
The flight from Vancouver to Shanghai, was no so cool. The plane was old school, and she couldn't manage me an exit row seat for that flight. The in flight movie was projected on a main screen, and it must have been from an old VCR, because the tracking was off. Sherry didn't care, she was asleep most of the flight. I did finally get to finish the Harry Potter series though, so it wasn't that bad. It was about time that I found out how those kids got killed off :P
Once we got to Shanghai we picked up our luggage with no problem and took a cab to our hotel. We got lucky and arrived durring rush hour. Only 3 buses tried to run us off the road, so I consider it fairly uneventful. It took us 2 hours to get across town, the driver said it usually takes about 40 mins. There weren't any accidents, just lots and lots of crazy drivers.
The hotel is great, infact its better than the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. For half as much as we paid in LV (and we got a great deal to get that price) we have a cleaner room with free internet and breakfast for a buck.
That was our travel experiance. All in all pretty good.
The second I got in the cab I knew I was back in China. I've never taken a cab in the states so I don't know about the, but here they all have a certain odor that you just can't get anywhere else. Something like stale cigarettes, and bad breath covered up by the same air freshener. Its really not that bad, just unique enough that it brought back a lot of memories of the last time I was here.
We left the hotel in Las Vegas at 4am on Jan 3rd. For the next 21 hours we chased the sun across the sky. Finally arriving in Shanghai at about 4pm Jan 4th (local time).
I love flying, but appearantly the airports don't love me. As has happened to me every time I've flown post 9-11 I was "randomly" chosen to go though extra security. Poor Sherry didn't know what she was getting when she married me. I did convince the TSA guy to tell me why I get to be the lucky guy every time. For some reason the airlines have me and anyone that flys with me on the non existent "no fly" list. He couldn't tell me why, but said I should write my senator because airlines were supposed to turn that stuff over to the TSA a long time ago, but haven't.
We had a great flight from LV to Vancouver. In fact it was probably the best flight of my life. The nice lady at check in managed to get my a seat in the emergency exit row. I had more leg room than I could use! It was like first class. The plane was state-of-the-art. It had an outlet for everyone, as well as a personal mutimedia system on the back of every seat. You could watch any of a few dozen movies, TV shows, News, or listen to music. I decided to sleep, and save th emovie watching for the second, longer, flight.
The flight from Vancouver to Shanghai, was no so cool. The plane was old school, and she couldn't manage me an exit row seat for that flight. The in flight movie was projected on a main screen, and it must have been from an old VCR, because the tracking was off. Sherry didn't care, she was asleep most of the flight. I did finally get to finish the Harry Potter series though, so it wasn't that bad. It was about time that I found out how those kids got killed off :P
Once we got to Shanghai we picked up our luggage with no problem and took a cab to our hotel. We got lucky and arrived durring rush hour. Only 3 buses tried to run us off the road, so I consider it fairly uneventful. It took us 2 hours to get across town, the driver said it usually takes about 40 mins. There weren't any accidents, just lots and lots of crazy drivers.
The hotel is great, infact its better than the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. For half as much as we paid in LV (and we got a great deal to get that price) we have a cleaner room with free internet and breakfast for a buck.
That was our travel experiance. All in all pretty good.
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