Okay, so my China trip has finally begun. Right now, I’m sitting in room 3217 (the 32nd floor!) in JinJiang Towers, this really nice hotel (five-star!). The room is so awesome. First of all, there is a doorbell outside our room that we can turn on and off (we meaning Eric and myself), and we can also flip another switch that calls for maid service. Inside the room, there’s a slot for you to put your cardkey in that closes a circuit, which turns all the power on in the room (otherwise you can’t turn on any electronics). The room is equipped with almost everything (except a talking toilet =P). Anyways, there’re the common pieces of furniture, and then there are robes, a flashlight, matches, slippers, etc.

Backtracking to the morning, I had to wake up at 5am (I went to bed at like 1:30am…August 8) and my brother drove my mom, Ian’s aunt, and I to the airport where we met Terry’s parents and Brett’s neighbors and embarked on an 8:10 flight to Los Angeles. When we got there, we had a 3 hour wait until our flight to Shanghai left, so my aunt came over and sat with us during our lunch (at 2:00pm). The 13 hour flight was okay, I slept for maybe half of it, but the good thing was I finished one of my summer reading books (2 more to go…and 9 journal entries). What was really cool was that on the television screens (when some ghetto movie wasn’t playing) a map was shown with the current location of the plane, the current time, the altitude, the arrival time, the outside temperature and the current speed of the plane. Although the little tiny plane moved slowly across the screen, the idea of knowing where we were, kept me busy for a long time.

When we finally got to Pu Dong Airport in Shanghai (soon to be the biggest airport in Asia), we went through customs and I saw one of the nicest looking airports ever! What really fascinated me was those carts that you put your luggage in. There’s a brake on the cart so that it doesn’t go anywhere, and the wheels turn so smoothly! Chinese people are so smart (you never see these innovative things in America). Okay, well after leaving the airport we took a one hour bus ride to our hotel. See, where the airport was located the surrounding area was very rural (the site of a river delta). However, as we moved closer and closer to downtown Shanghai, the numerous billboards started popping up. There’s this one bridge that’s like a spiral. Since there’s no room left to build anything, the highway spirals down 3 times to level ground. Shanghai is like New York meets Hong Kong. It’s EXTREMELY crowded and neon lights are EVERYWHERE. It didn’t really feel like Asia until I saw the really low prices (5 bucks for a nice t-shirt) and until cars and buses almost ran me over in the street.

When we got to the hotel, we got our rooms, and 20 minutes later Eric and his mom arrived. Well, we went to dinner and decided to walk the streets to go shop. However, all the shops closed by 10pm leaving us with nothing to do, but go back to the hotel…and that leads me to now. I’m typing on this computer and Eric is watching Saving Private Ryan on HBO. Well, the rest of our trip (except the end when we return to Shanghai) won’t be this glorious, and I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. Okay, now I have to get back to my summer reading…sigh.

Eric's additional comments:

Starting from WMACS, WMACS was fun…the dance was ok, sleeping on the last day was fun for everyone I’m sure. Then going home. Forgot what I did.

I went to Taiwan. Didn’t do much. My mom went shopping almost everyday and I went out with the relatives on weekends. They’re cool, like big little kids at heart. (Wonder what happened this generation…) anyway, slept on the third floor of my grandpa’s 4-story complex that he designed. 4th floor is rent. 3rd Is for oldest son of grandpa who is married and they have 2 kids, my cousins, a girl who’s as old as me and a guy who’s studying in Canada who’s like 22 I think. Cousin took me to a bbq on the top story of her friend’s house. It’s like Taiwan social events. There were like 7 girls and 13 guys. I think there were like 7 uninvited guys… still fun. Later after school they have on weekdays (their summer lasted 23 days new policy.)

[pictures here are all in normal cameras, no idea when they will be developed]

Went to play CounterStrike with my cousin’s friends in crowded smoky comp cafes, they’re really cool and funny. Also went to shing men ding. A lot of ‘sketchyness’, punks, and sketchy punks too. (The sketchy as in hot, not shady. Code word for Asia vacation.) I saw two Goths kissing for cams but the girl was like really little, dun feel like explaining (ask in person if you really want to know) but it wasn’t like stauratory rape or incest. I think the cam dudes asked em to cuz later other people were asked to pose. Also there was an incident where me and my cousin were on a bus and I was looking out at some normal pretty girls when she said ‘la mei’ as in hot girls (their job is to look hot and sell the shit u chew and spit out that looks like blood and I was like "they are la mei? A special la-mei?” In America, people dress like that all the time…right yi-pi? ddr was fun there and lotsa other stuff happened, people came over, too lazy to type, this is of course supposed to be about china, still haven’t got there…

Flew to China, China airlines is cool, cool luggage tag, cool map of where you are flying now, and cool flight attendants. China is cool, this person who Kevin’s mom knows who has a brother living in Taiwan who owns this fancy restaurant for government officials and such arranged for him to pick me and my mom up and then he took us to see his awesome restaurant for free, lotsa cool good food and this really good prawn shrimp thing. Then drove to meet up with kfang at the hotel. O yeah, waitress 051, the same one that serves us when we come back with the whole group at the end of the trip served us that time too. Just some random fact I noticed. Then Kevin and I sample their exercise room ‘work out’, and bowl when he comes back with us to eat here again at the end of the trip. Note: I would have won the game if only I hadn’t gotten 0 two times in order for him to catch up “promoting fun competition”. hehe Kevin: sure...and I wouldn't have lost the first game if I hadn't accidentally bowled for him >_<.

August 9, 2001

Okay, wow, China is like America, but more in both directions of human behavior (also read National Geographic tips section).

There’s all sorts of interesting stuff in the National Geographic Travel Guide about…

Raping
The Art of Lining up
The Bathrooms (It’s a bit too creative and descriptive of rural bathrooms)
Crime
Racism “Chinese prejudice often increases, the darker the skin color.”
Spitting
Smoking (The air outside is so bad its like smoking two packs a day each day”
Bargaining (How foreigners are massively overcharged)

O wow so that’s why…I was just looking through and found out that despite China’s size, the whole country is using the same time zone time as Beijing.

They are nicer yet the stupid ones are ruder. People are too scared to commit crimes. Communist penalties are harsh. We (me and my mom) had to fly to Hong Kong first cause there aren’t flights directly to shang hai From the plane it was like wow, grass AND expensive looking buildings… lots of them all lined up in neat little rows. Yeah, the hotel room is great. Later we got GAT backpacks, towels, and hats. Our tour guide is really cool too. I got my digital Camera today, which I will use for project B. (I’m actually writing all this 3 days from this day A 9th *ding dong* It’s terry’s dad… s***, memory card had to be given to put everything into terry’s dad’s comp. I had about 5 seconds to check for project B pictures... hope none were taken.)

Anyway, the airport was cool; I was also fascinated at how smoothly the wheels for the luggage carts turned J too.

The shops closed one by one as we got to them because all the adults are slo slowpokes.

Saving Private Ryan is soooo cool at the end. (44 double E in D) haha, very intriguing.

O yeah, I think we have an incriminating photo of Kevin playing around with the nasty robe. Who knows who has worn that thing…eww yuck.

Also, I seem to remember us having those cool carts with brakes…don’t we? Yeah we do.