China Trip 2016 (part 1)

Our China trip came sooner than we expected! We boarded on the airplane to Shanghai on June 22^nd (Wednesday) with excitement and anticipation. We couldn't wait to start a great trip of adventure and excitement!

The 15-hour flight ride wasn’t the most comfortable thing. It was the first time for me to recognize that the long hours of confinement at such a high altitude had a toll on my aging body. But all the tiredness dissipated as soon as the wheels of the plane hit the ground in Shanghai airport Thursday afternoon.

 We got to watch the movie we had wanted to watch: Zootopia

 Emily's wiggling tooth started bleeding a little. She was distressed about the blood. It finally fell off at church three days later.

 Andy was happy to play the chess game on the airplane. I had to order him to quit a couple of times to rest his eyes.

  Here we came

 One of my college roommates had planned to pick us up. But because of a last minute meeting, she asked her co-worker to pick us up. It took a while to find him because the only way for us to communicate in China was by Wechat and we could not get Wi-Fi because we didn’t have a local phone to get the passcode.  Finally we got the passcode from a student who was picking up someone. David also used his international plan on his cell phone. We were greeted warmly outside the Starbucks. 

Since we never saw Shanghai before, we decided to make good use of our limited time here. After we got to the hotel in the Bund area at 7:00pm, we hurried out to get on the cruise along the Huangpu river to enjoy the night view of Shanghai. It was beautiful! All the lights, architectures, the water clapping sounds and the humid breeze whispered its name “Oriental Peal”. After we went back to the hotel, all of us were hungry and tired. The cafeteria was already closed. The people in the cafeteria told us we could come for the complimentary night snack after 10:00pm. So we waited for fifteen minutes and enjoyed the delicious rice soup as our snacks before bed.

The next morning we had a feast for breakfast (all the hotels in China provide so many varieties of food for breakfast). Then we got on one of the double-decked tour buses to look around. We got off at the Yu Garden. It was famous for its architecture, street vendors, local food, a Dao temple, and more. It was an interesting place for the kids to have a glimpse of Chinese culture there.

 This lady at the Yu Garden was so talented that she could cut out a person's face within minutes. We asked her to do one for Emily and one for Andy.

 Emily and Andy got to ride so many escalators in China: almost everywhere

 The kids really liked the Chinese traditional yogurt.

 And the famous "Xiao Long Bao" - a meat stuffed bun

 Every place looked like a picture there

 

We went inside a famous Chinese temple. Emily and Andy were a little scared

In the evening we went to a dinner hosted by my college classmates. They happened to have a mini-reunion and a soccer game that weekend. I got to see many friends whom I hadn’t seen for twenty one years (some flew from Beijing/North and some flew from Shenzhen/South in addition to the ones from Shanghai). We had a great time of re-connecting with each other. After the dinner, Lian (David’s former FriendSpeak reader who became a Christian) came to meet us. We were so happy to see him and catch up with him!

My college roommate arranged the VIP status for our next flight since she worked for the airport. We decided not to use it. It turned out to be a mistake because our flight was postponed for three hours because of the weather. There were no seats for us at the waiting room. David took Emily to walk around the airport. Finally it was time for boarding, David and Emily were still not back. Andy kept asking “what if they miss the airplane?” despite of my effort to affirm him that they wouldn’t. Finally he said “Mommy, let’s pray!” Then he prayed for God to bring them back before the airplane left. He was full of joy when he saw that God answered his prayer in five minutes. When David and Emily came back to us, there were still some people waiting in line. Andy told them he prayed for them. Emily answered back “I already prayed five times during the trip and I just didn’t tell you.” Yes, our trip wouldn’t be so fantastic without countless prayers!

Finally we had one seat at the waiting room. Andy got to play chess for a little while

Shanghai has so much to see and so much to do and so much to eat ... We didn't even scratch the surface during those one and half days. We surely loved everything while we were there! I'm sure we will cross path again in the future. Now unto our next stop ...