Back in the Saddle...in Shenyang

We are finally up and running again on the blog; for the last two days, based on what we have read, Google and the Chinese authorities have been working through internet search issues due to the use of too many explicit phrases. From what we read in the Shanghai post yesterday, the authorities sent Google so many words that they wanted blocked, that it was going to take more than a day to handle!!

Anyway, to start filling in some of the blanks from the other day. We left Detroit airport after walking through a group of 7-8 TSA agents who were told to "randomly" search the passengers boarding our plan; then we were next met with another group of 8-10 customs agents, who were guarding the door and searching all passports. Those were the folks that told our flight attendants that it was "none of their business" why there were there. Supposedly, from other press that we have read, there is an increasing Heroin trade that is flowing through Shanghai recently. It was not a comforting feeling to have all of those folks at our plane door, though!!!

The flight from Detroit to Shanghai was very long - about 15 hours in total. Luckily, Kyle slept off/on for 8 hours of the trip. The entire flight was packed full of passengers. We ended up flying up over the North Pole and Russia, so we had daylight the entire way - it was pretty wild. We think that we even saw Santa and Mrs. Claus waving at us from the frozen tundra! To top off the long flight, when we arrived in Shanghai, the Medical Team boarded the plan the take every single person's temperature. They were dressed in white suits and it was very surreal as they pointed a scan gun directly at your forehead, while you held your breath praying that you didn't show a temperature (otherwise, you would have been sent directly to quarantine!) Also, if anyone in any of the rows - 3 in front of us or 3 in back of us would have had a temperature, we would have been sent to quarantine, too. Luckily, our entire plane was cleared.

After we hit the airport, we knew that we were totally being scammed for the cost of the cab ride (which was exorbitant), but I could not pinpoint the woman directly and accuse her of taking advantage of us. After 25 hrs. of traveling and being dead tired, we were about to pay anything just to get to our hotel, so we just sucked it up knewing that a scam was at hand. As the driver drove the roads to the airport, he was doing 60-70 mph and then would just stand on the brake within inches of needing to stop. It was quite a comforting ride. He also hit a massive metal piece of something and we went flying over that....sort of like the Wild Ride of Mr. Toad!! Kyle loves the fact that none of the cabs have car seats, so you just get strapped in and hang on to the "handle" for support.

The next day, post massive jet lag, we were up around 5:00 a.m. and out the door by 6:00 a.m. to explore Shanghai. We went to the Oriental Pearl Tower which is the third tallest building in the world, and we went up to about the 1000 ft. level (go figure that I am afraid of heights, so remained plastered against the back wall of the observation tower, while Charlie and Kyle went right up the the big windows to see the world.) It was actually pretty cool. As we rode the elevator up, they ignored all rules of how many people were in the elevator, and Kyle screamed out "too many peoples in here. It is NOT safe!!!" Luckily, no one could understand him. We started laughing. He was totally squeezed in amongst the masses.

Next, we rode the infamous Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. I highly recommend it - it is sort of like Space Mountain at the end of the ride when you go up that moving sidewalk to see the 20 yr. old exhibits and then there are all colors of flashing lights at rapid speeds. You can read all about it under "hokey" in the dictionary. We were laughing so hard at it. It goes under the river to get you back and forth between the 2 areas.

Then, we took the Huangzhou River Tour, which was a big boat that floated up and down the river, so you could see all of the massive skyscrapers in Shanghai. It was a pretty neat way to see lots of the buildings up and down the waterways. We met some neat American women, Sally and Courtney, so we had a fun time chatting. (Thanks for making the trip such a fun ride, guys! Courtney, get that Malawi trip all set up too - ha.ha.) We were the only Americans on board. It was also filled with a Senior Citizen Asian trip, who was staring at all of us during the trip.

While we were doing all of these things, it was only about 90 degrees with 99 percent humidity. It was so hot, it was ridiculous, so we walked back to our hotel to rest for a bit and catch our next breath.

We will post more pictures later today (we are dependent on the business center to take care of our computing needs and we need to find a camera cable to upload the pix). We'll also write more later on yesterday's events in Shanghai as we had another full day.