- My plane from Wuhan to Shanghai was canceled, so I was rescheduled on a different one.
- When a taxi cab driver drove me to the bus station, as soon as he pulled up, some homeless guy opened my door and was begging for money.
- When I was walking up to the bus station, a couple guys kept on trying to get me to take their taxis instead. One of them had a pretty firm grasp on my arm, but I just kept on walking. I just repeating “I already have a bus ticket” over and over again.
- Neither Wuhan or Shanghai make you take off your shoes. The security is a lot simpler and relaxing. If you walk through and set off the metal detector, they just wave the wand around you and let you pass.
- Boarding the flight from Shanghai to Newark, they perform a manual inspection of carry-on bags (probably for liquids). When checking mine, I just said “It’s all electronics” and they let me go.
- US Customs was pretty easy. For some reason, most everyone else had to get their finger prints taken, but I was just allowed to get my passport stamped and walk through.
- Could have used some extra time between the Newark to Minneapolis connection. I really did not have much free time there after going through US Customs.
- Once again, the food in American airlines is pretty lame in comparison to Chinese airlines.
- On my long flight back to Newark from Shanghai, I used the in-flight entertainment for most of it. I broke out my Nintendo DSi towards the end though.
- New York looks awesome at night from the sky. I just wish I could have broken out my camera during the take-off. Sunset looks amazing from the plane too.
- The Wuhan bus station feels like a mini-airport. The buses feel like a plane.
- The girl next to me on my China Southern flight from Wuhan to Shanghai putted a netbook out of her purse. Those things fit anywhere…
- On my flight to Newark, they reassigned my seat.
- The bag that I checked in did not make the flight back to MN. I’ll get it tomorrow apparently.
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- I actually woke up at 7AM! Not 4:30AM like I have been…
- Last full day in China.
- It’s been dark and rainy for a lot of the day.
- I made myself a nice bowl of ramen today into the hotel room.
- I’ve been repacking my clothes and gear.
- Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe > All.
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- Slow day. Not much new.
- I have not seen the sun since the day I got here. (And when I did see it, I was above the clouds in the airplane.)
- I walked into the technology center today. It was really cool except people kept on trying to sell me stuff… in Chinese… I managed to escape though.
- I’ve been here for less than two weeks, and I’ve found a hair in two different sealed products. I’ve _never_ seen one in the US before.
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- Hung out with one of Jessie’s friends today.
- Went boating across a lake.
- Went to visit a national park.
- For lunch, we got Smashed Tomatoes & Eggs, Fish, Rice, some vegetable, and a chicken stirfry? Served with tea.
- Pulled about 500 CNY out of an ATM for myself. Stupid $5 ATM transaction fee…
- Walked by a Mario Kart 64 demo in a mall. Wait… Mario Kart 64? That was like 10 years ago.
- The supermarket has a lot of interesting fruits / veggies not really found in America.
- Went to the post office and picked up a postcard.
- Took photos of the 4 American restaurants I’ve been able to find so far.
- Elevators go negative. Interesting. I’m use to B1, B2, etc.
- I’ve never seen such small bananas before…
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- Went exploring a lot more today. Jessie took me around the city.
- Visited the Yellow Crane Tower.
- Took a lot of photos.
- Ate more authentic Chinese food. What I ate today was actually a bit too spicy for my taste.
- Walked past some guy lying on the ground with a tip jar. He looked like his legs were wrapped up or something, but he would push his tip jar forward, wiggle himself forward a little bit, and repeat. That was a really weird sight.
- I had a _lot_ of people looking at me today. Unfortunately, I could not tell if it was because I’m American, or because I was wearing my “2+2=5″ t-shirt. Maybe both!
- The wind likes to mess up my hair. Breeze felt really good though.
- Asides from trash cans, they also have trash carts.
- There are areas of the city so packed with shops, that there is hardly any room to walk.
- For trees that happen to get cut down because they are in the way of the sidewalk, they cut down the tree, but leave like 5″ of the base. Huh? Why would you do that? I wonder how many people trip over those.
- Parts of the sidewalks there are missing bricks / pavement. Other parts have a massive glob of pavement that would have looked so much better if they would have taken the time to flatten it out first before letting it dry.
- Around here in the busy areas, they have privately run bathrooms which people have to pay to use.
- There actually is not much PDA (Public Displays of Affection) when walking the streets of China.
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