My First Glimpse of Shanghai, China

Can you say overwhelmed???   From the moment we stepped off the plane, we hustled to register as a visitor, then to baggage claim, then to customs, then through a route that more than 150 people lined the roped off area and all of them had a sign with someone’s same on it.  It was a sort of organized madness.  You could not possibly read them all even if you tried.  An to make matters more interesting, you are dog tired from a 14 hour plane ride from Chicago… and for us… our day started Saturday at 2am so basically it has been 24 hours of non-stop travel.  We shared a ride to the hotel that cost us 500 RMB.   It is tough to do the math on the conversion in your head when you are tired and they want you to decide now…  but we probably overpaid. It was roughly a $75.00 USD ride. 

The RIDE… let’s just say… lanes are a suggestion, the more lanes you can cross in a minutes time must be a bonus… and the horn must work… and pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way.  I did not realize how tensed up I was until I got out of the cab at the hotel.  I even let out a few ‘yikes’ on some really close calls… I was scared to death and vowed at the moment I would not be driving while I am living here.  Michael agreed that it would not be a good thing for me either. 

Let’s just say I am in awe!  The city lights at night are incredible.  The signs are written in both Chinese and English… even more incredible than New York.  The closer we get to the city center of the PuDong District, the more it is sinking in …How are these Texan’s going to manage living in this foreign city?

We finally arrive at our hotel, the St Regis Shanghai.  It is huge and inviting to a couple of weary travelers that have been up for over 30 hours.  We get checked in and make our way to our room.  The room does not disappoint us… it has a bed call our names.  We unpack and break out the laptops.  I want to see if we can connect and bring up Skype.  Since this will be our method of communication, gotta make sure we can rock and roll.  And much to my delight… we connect and on the other end are Jennifer and the kids!!! Yee Ha!!!  Success….we are talking!!!

At this point, we are not interested in food… the airline pretty much OD’d us on food… just a real bed is all we want at this point… nighty night!!