August 26, 2001

Whoa…weird day (very long I might add…I’ll explain). In the morning we ate at the revolving restaurant again and then went downstairs to meet up with Jack again. Now that he’s the local guide once again, the parents said that he could “show off”. We went to the city museum…no not the main museum in the city, but a museum of the evolution of the city. It had like six floors but we only saw four. It was amazing to see all the development that took place in Shanghai in just 40 years. Each floor was divided so that the first floor was the lobby, “middle” floor was ancient Shanghai, second floor was Shanghai in the 20th century, and the third floor had this huge model of the entire city and also newly developed residential areas. After exploring these floors, we went all the way down to the basement to see a replica of what a 1930 Shanghai street would have looked like…pretty weird.

Then it was off to the airport…sniff…goodbye China…but hello America! After an 11.5 hour flight, we had gained 3 hours (our flight left at 3pm 8.26.2001 in Shanghai, and arrived at 12pm 8.26.2001 in Los Angeles). That was pretty weird…experiencing all this time twice in one day (even weirder…two sunrises and two sunsets in 24 hours…) Well, when we arrived in America, we had to get through customs and stuff and went to the American Airlines ticketing counter to get our boarding passes for our next flight back to DC.

Now here’s where some confusion occurred. See, the first time we were in Los Angeles, my aunt told my mom that she would take all of us to go eat lunch when we got back. However, before we left, Terry’s parents also agreed with Terry’s grandmother that she would bring food. Wait, there’s more. Now, my mom thought that it would be that when we got to the airport, she would call my aunt at her house. My aunt thought that she would wait for us outside the terminal. However, my aunt waited at the entrance whereas we were at the exit. Therefore, my cousin drove around the airport for about an hour waiting for us. So now here’s Terry’s grandmother and aunt with food, and my aunt with cars waiting to take us to lunch. Of course now Terry’s parents go with their family, and the rest of us go eat lunch with my aunt. In the end all turned out well as we took the food that Terry’s grandmother brought with us on the plane =P.

So now it was only seven people left on the plane ride back to Dulles (my dad stayed because he has to go to work in San Francisco). I told myself that I wouldn’t sleep on the plane ride because I would need to be able to readjust my times, but of course, right after we took off I passed out =P…this meaning when I got home I could only sleep a little less than four hours from 3am to about 6:45am…and that’s that.