I made it! (part deuce)

Ok, so this is where the fun starts. We board the plane with only a three hour journey by air in between Beijing and me and from the way I felt just being in the Tokyo airport, this trip was going to be good. The flight however had about an hour straight of turbulance but I didn't care because I watched a movie and talked to my new friend Edward who was born in Hong Kong. He was traveling from boston with his family and he was about 50 years old and I loved him. So about 2hrs and 50min pass when the pilot comes on to tell us, due to bad storms over Beijing, we will be forced to circle for 30min to wait for it to let up. You could imagine the suspense this is building in me! So about 40 minutes later the pilot comes on again....this is when the adventure really starts!
He states that Beijing is not accepting in landings tonight but luckily, we have enough fuel to make it to Seoul, South Korea!!! Well, great, I will be visiting South Korea and because I am american, I can get off the plane but others are begining to worry. So an hour later and about 3/4 of the way to Korea, the pilot comes on again, only this time to say that Seoul refuses to have us, so we have about a 2 hour trip to Shanghai! This time he does not mention our gas status which makes me a little uncomfortable. Two hours later, we land in Shanghai. Now as we decended, I was hit with an even stronger nastalgic feeling than in Tokyo. It was dark and you could see hundreds of boat lights in the bay. When we land, an agent comes on board and tells us we will recieve vouchers and will get there by bus. Phillip, Tran, Sandi, and I put our names on the list of about 500 people and wait. Surprisingly, we get on the bus with in 30 minutes. As I am sitting on the bus with my way too big bag in my lap (really, it was too big, poor Phil had to lift it up and down on every flight bc I can't lift it over my head), I began to feel ver fatigued and then I realize, I have not slept in almost 24 hours besides a couple of times i dozed off. Well, this bus ride to the hotel took an hour!!!! By the time we got there it was 2am China (which means it was 1pm in Dallas the day before which means I had been up for 24 hours straight) and after a shower (don't be shocked) I made it in bed by 3am. Only to get a wake up at 7am. We take the ride back to the airport but this time in the light, and it was amazing. This ride was when I realized something very very strange. Throughout this whole ordeal, I never once found myslef griping, annoyed, or cussing under my breath. I loved it. And Shanghai! Oh my gosh, the streeets where all lined with the best landscaping, I mean everywhere. And the buildings were sooo huge and there were so many. I will post a picture of that for sure.
So, we get on the plane headed for Beijing and when we arrive they give us all $50 voucher for any U.S. in country flight. We are picked up by Diego Garcia (our advisor from A&M) and a man named Li (lee). Li and his wife are helping Diego to coordinate everything because they are from here. So, I finally made it. Now, my next blog will be about what we did that night and those pics will be amazing. But I must run to see the Great Wall!

I am posting picture of my Shanghai Stay. There is one of my bedroom at the hotel they put us in. It was about 1 foot off the bed, very wide, and hard as a rock, which I loved! Another is of a the art work in the room, I thought it was funny, another is of my breakfast there (I don't recomend the Chicken sausage), one of Phillip on the bus, and then there are some pictures of apartment buildings on the outskirts of Shanghai. Missing you all~Lindsay