Trip to China

My travel to Wuhan went very well. We left DFW on time and arrived early in Chicago. We left Chicago on time and arrived twenty minutes early in Shanghai, relaxing my concern over a tight schedule there. My gold status allows me to select a seat just behind those in first and business class, allowing early departure from the plane. We had a long walk inside the terminal to customs, where a sizable group was waiting in the foreign section where I would go and about six people waiting in the Chinese section. As we approached the separation point I was picked out and directed to the Chinese side and found myself next in line to be processed. On my entry slip I left the address line blank because I didn’t know how to write in the Chinese address I had. At the window he wanted an address written in. I showed him the Chinese address I had with me and he copied it in and I was on my way. I spent about two minutes total in customs and was headed to baggage. There I had another surprise. My piece of luggage was about the sixth one to arrive. I picked it off the belt and noticed an orange tag on it. I looked at it and saw it was marked priority handling. Why, I don’t know. Within five minutes of entering customs I had my luggage and was headed toward the domestic terminal with plenty of time to catch my flight to Wuhan. I boarded my plane and called Zuhua and they met me at the Wuhan airport.

The nearly fourteen hour flight from Chicago to Shanghai seemed to go by very quickly this time. I slept some and finished reading the book titled, “Castaway Kid” and watched four movies. This trip, for a change, had some very good movies. One that I watched was “Blind Side”. – If you get a chance, read the book.

I ate breakfast before I left and had three meals on the Chicago to Shanghai flight and a very small meal flying to Wuhan. Jiajing’s parents hadn’t eaten yet so we stopped at a new restaurant that opened that day and had a great meal of fish. That was meal number six. We headed home and to bed. I slept most of Tuesday night, most of Wednesday and most of Wednesday night. I stayed up Thursday, hoping to sleep Thursday night, but at two in morning my body was awake wondering why the sun wasn’t up yet.

Well, so much for my travels. I want to schedule this entry to post and then write about my experience on Thursday. Don’t miss the one on Friday, which will post on Wednesday, as it has some beautiful pictures in it.