China - Day 87 - Going going back back to Cali Cali

Of course, the travel gods of China would make it difficult for me to leave. After Dr. Sun generously offered one of the company cars to drive me to my hotel in Shanghai, it was an hour and a half late. Why, you may ask? Because the street outside my apartment had flooded. After we finally hit the road, about an hour into the drive, we hear some knocking and have to pull off the road to check it out. I was worried that I wasn't going to make it to Shanghai, but the problem turned out to just be the under-engine plate guard, not a major problem. We fixed it with some rope and continued on to the hotel.

The flooding in front of my apartment building. I wasn't kidding.	While we were getting the car checked out I played with the mechanic's dog. Playing with dogs is the same in any language

The hotel turned out to be in the boonies, nothing like the area around airports in the states. I think it qualified as the Chinese suburbs. Either way, I was kinda disappointed. I checked into the hotel and I actually had a pretty nice room (free internet even). However, I didn't see any other guests there, which was a bit disconcerting (I later heard them having an argument later that night). I wandered around the area looking for dinner (eschewing hotel restaurants, which was a good idea in hindsight), but the pickings were slim. I grabbed some modest street food and retired to my room to watch far much more TV than is probably healthy for me.

My glorious 11 kuai (about $1.50) dinner.

China - Day 1 - Whelp, I'm in Asia now

Wow, where to begin?

June 19
Let's start with the flights. I left SFO on June 18 on United flying to Incheon where I would catch a connecting flight to Shanghai on China Eastern Airlines. I was lucky enough to be upgraded to business class for the SFO-ICN flight (thank you mom and dad's frequent flier miles) and I have to say, it was exquisite. They served me three glasses of champagne before we even left the gate (one I had when I first sat down, the second when my seat mate [an anthropology professor from Harvard] joined me and the third when the flight attendants had to finish off the bottle before take off [I guess we looked like we would oblige another drink]).

747-400's at SFO. I think one of them was mine	A little pre-flight champagne