We're Here

WE'RE HERE!
It is Sunday evening. I’ve pretty much lost a day traveling. We arrived in China around 2:40 PM. We ventured through Chinese customs and baggage claim. At the Chinese customs, they had little screens that took pictures and matched the faces with the passports. It was quite interesting. A few of the students in our group lost their luggage. I’m so glad that I had all mine, and even had a carry on in the event that I did loose it.
We met our tour guide after walking through a mob of Chinese people who had signs with different names on them. Our tour guide’s name is Jin Jing. She speaks very good English. We all thought she was so cute as well.
It was hard to see what Shanghai looked like due to the rain and fog today. Our tour guide promises it will be better once the rain goes away.
We arrived at the hotel and checked into our rooms. Upon walking down the hall to our room, I noticed how low the ceilings were. I am 5’ 3” and could touch the ceiling without standing on my tippy toes. We walked into our room. Although it looked like the pictures online, it was 5x smaller. The cot literally felt like a piece of plywood with sheets on it. The beds were low to the ground (lower than knee level), and weren’t much better. We laughed off the differences and quickly got ready for our first Chinese dinner.
Jing took us to a very nice Chinese restaurant. We were welcomed by young men playing instruments and were quickly seated at two round tables. The Chinese waitresses brought out dishes, and dishes of food. It was never ending. We ate family style. It was one of the other student’s birthday’s and so the restaurant served cake to all of us. It was much different than American cake, lighter and fluffier. There was also Chinese dancers and performers during dinner.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Victoria, Emma and I attempted to find a Starbucks, to get on the Internet. However there was no free Internet in Starbucks. Although everything is relatively inexpensive in China, it still costs for us to use the Internet in the hotel. We walked around the block to the mini mart and bought some drinks. 3, 2-liter drinks were only about $2.80 USD. So inexpensive! We also walked around in a grocery store and saw many Chinese foods.
We walked back to the hotel, and took showers. I’m pretty exhausted and will probably fall asleep soon. We have a busy day tomorrow, almost on the go for 12 straight hours.