March 21, 2015
Although very tired, today was our last day in China. We were scheduled to fly out of Shanghai Pudong Airport at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening Shanghai time, which would have been 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning Central time. I knew jet lag would set in on the way home.
As today was Saturday we did not have any school visits, or meetings. Xiadong, along with his friend James, and Ben and Ben's daughter Claudia who attends college in Shanghai (yes these are their American names - most Chinese people who travel a lot also have an American name; let's just say it is much easier this way), graciously gave us a tour of down town Shanghai. We walked along the Huangpu River, there was a great walkway with vendors along the way, we also saw a Veterans' Memorial.
This area of Shanghai is like Wall Street in the US with banks and financial institutions everywhere. For our final excursion we hit the crowded streets of Shanghai; there were stores, vendors and places to eat along the way with hundreds of thousands of people walking everywhere in this area. My only thought here was..... do not lose Xiadong and his friends or I may miss my flight home.
We left the busy streets and headed to the airport. It's hard to explain in words what the driving is like all throughout these large cities; lets just say it's crazy and many people do not even drive in this mess. Cars, taxi's, mopeds and bikes in every direction, everywhere you can see.
Boarded the plane at 5:20 to prepare for the 14 hour flight back to Chicago. Finally after sitting on the plane for two hours we are able to take off. Yes, people on the plane were getting a little restless. To pass the time on the plane I tried to sleep, watched the progress of the flight on the monitor in front of me (what I noticed most is that it took us forever to cross the Pacific Ocean) and finished writing my blogs so I could post when we landed. I can't even tell you how much I am looking forward to having Internet with no sites being blocked by the government.
Landed in Chicago at 7:30 p.m. The pilot did a great job making up the time we lost sitting on the runway. It's hard to imagine that we left Shanghai at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 21st flew 7,048 miles and landed in Chicago at 7:30 p.m. and it is still Saturday night March 21st! Went through customs, called our hotel shuttle and headed to the hotel. Will spend the night in Chicago and head to Eagle River early Sunday morning.
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