China - Day 1

I've decided to tell you all about my China trip through a series of blog posts so that I don't bore you to tears with one massive, Chinese history heavy entry. So sit back and enjoy the ride, because it was one heck of an adventure!

Wednesday September 26, 2007

"Ding-Dong, ding-dong, ding-dong!!!!!" My wake-up call for Wednesday came in the form of my mother ringing my door bell. I had overslept!!!!!! Oh my what a panic! Thank the Lord I had done all of my packing the night before so I just had to hop in the shower and be out the door, but what stress!! I made it to the airport and to my gate in plenty of time. But of course when I got there I started to think of all the things I may have forgotten to do. Poor Chasity got a frantic text message to see if she could stop by and check to see if my front door was locked, LOL! Mom had come in the front, and we left through the garage so I couldn't be positive that the front was actually locked. Thanks Chas for entertaining my psychosis (the door turned out to be locked).

I got to San Fran and met up with Tiffany, Sarah, and Carissa with no problems at all. As we boarded our plane we noticed a ton of people all wearing the same kind of shirt. Shortly we were informed that we were riding to Shanghai with the entire Special Olympics team from El Salvador! That immediately made me think of my friend Sam who does volunteer work with the Special Olympics in her area. Sam did you know that the Special Olympics world games were going on in Shanghai while I was there?? The kids were all very nice, and so excited about going to China. A plane full of excited Special Olympics kids did make sleeping a bit of a challenge, but luckily I remembered to pack my sleep aid and was out like a light pretty quickly after that. And the kids inspired us to adopt the slogan "I know I can" as the motto for this trip!

Once we made it to Shanghai we located the post office inside the airport and mailed off the supply boxes for Annabelle's Wish. It was super cheap - we mailed 3 large boxes for under 30 US dollars. Then we took the Magnetic Levitation Train (the MagLev) to the last stop and then switched to a taxi to take us to our hotel - The Laurel hotel. It was really pretty nice for how cheap it was and very centrally located so that was a big plus. The only thing we found strange was behind the curtain where one might expect to find a window, there was a door leading to nowhere. Very twilight zone!! But by this time all we wanted to do was get in the bed and get some sleep for the adventures ahead.


To be continued......

And the pics :)

Tiffany and Sarah on the MagLev


The Laurel Hotel


Tiffany modeling the wierd curtain


This one's for you Sam!