On Our Way

The semester has barely begun and oh what an adventure it has been! After a long night of no sleep Kareena and I hopped into my dad’s car and met up with the rest of my fam at Dee’s on Redwood and 21st. It was nice to get to see everyone and say good-bye. Then we all headed over to the airport where we met up with the ILP crew who gave us our passports and paperwork. After we got our tickets and checked our bags it was time to really say good-bye. There were lots of pictures of course J and after lots of hugs and waving and some tears we went through security and were on our way.

At the terminal we met up with the rest of the teachers in our group. There were 15 of us traveling from SLC. Right away we all got along very well. Our plane was supposed to leave at 11:!1 but unfortunately was delayed by about an hour because of weather in san Francisco. I was surprised by how small our plane was when it did get to us. It took a little creativity to find a place for my guitar, but luckily the staff was very helpful.

I slept through the whole flight but not until I got a few really pretty pictures from up in the air. My head was not very happy when I had to wake up at our next stop. It was even more unhappy when we discovered that our flight to Shanghai, that was supposed to leave that afternoon, was delayed until 9:30 the next morning!! So we spent the next four hours at the airport while our head teachers waited in a huge line to talk to United Airlines. Eventually we got everything sorted out and they gave us food vouchers for the airport and free rooms at a hotel in the city. So we ate dinner and then hopped on a shuttle to the hotel.

It was a actually a pretty nice place and they served a really good breakfast in the morning. We weren’t allowed to go out into the city, but we entertained ourselves pretty well. We played a hilarious game of Phase 10 with Ashley and Dayna. We were all so tired that we were absolutely ridiculous! The next morning we caught the first shuttle back and made our way through security once again and over to our terminal. When our plane finally arrived we were all very relieved. Now all we had was a 12 hour plane ride ahead of us.

I gotta say I was surprised by how well fed we were. We got two meals and a snack and they brought drinks by quite frequently. The food wasn’t half bad either. They had movies and tv shows playing but I was konked out for half of it. There was a Chinese woman sitting next to me and I was intrigued by the fact that every once in awhile she would stand up, stomp her feet and then get up into her seat and squat on it. It was pretty cool haha. Arriving in Shanghai was the coolest experience ever. I’ve never felt more out of place in my life and it was awesome! Getting through immigration and customs was surprisingly quick and then we had to get our bags. We learned really quickly that it’s do or die here haha. If you try and be polite and wait your turn then you’ll never get anywhere.

As we went into the greeting area we found our school coordinator who helped us over to our bus. Everywhere we went the Chinese people were very open about staring at us. It was kind of cool haha. Little kids would get excited and point at us as they tugged on their parents. It was a 3 hr bus ride from Shanghai to Weijin. I was awake most of the time and was able to chat more with Ashley. We’ll be good friends, I can tell J

One thing I noticed right away about the area we were in is that it is very GREEN. Everywhere we looked there were tons of trees and small orchards off the freeway and then in between were apt buildings, lots of apt buildings haha. Once we got to our city we saw a lot more people. A lot of bicycles and a lot of these small motorbikes with really tiny wheels.

When we finally got to our school we were all ecstatic. I was a little surprised by how nice it was. They just remodeled our apts too so they are very nice, although the bathrooms will definitely take a little getting used to.

All-in-all it’s been a crazy journey getting here. And a LONG journey. But as I look out my window and see signs I can’t understand, and people talking in a language that’s complete gibberish to me, and as I wipe the constant layer of humidity off my brow once again, I can’t help but smile. It’s going to be quite the adventure and all the strangeness just makes it that much more exciting.