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As most of you know, our planned relaxing few days to China turned out to be more hassle than we expected. After our second flight to New York got cancelled due to bad weather, we stayed the night in a hotel in Charlotte. We left the following morning and flew to New York. After getting there we caught a ride to the hotel we had booked by JFK (we flew into LaGuardia, which was the only replacement flight the airline offered to get to New York). We stayed in, ordered pizza, and watched TV until we all fell asleep only to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport. We made our flight and jumped from NY to DC to Chicago, where we ended up riding a Boeing 777 to Shanghai for 14 hours. Luckily, each seat had it's own TV in the headrest of the seat in front with an extensive selection of movies, tv shows, books, and music/lectures. This turned out to be what the kids wanted to be involved in for most of the flight. Ramsay and I did not sleep very much on that flight even when the kids were asleep. After landing we got a ride to our Shanghai hotel and camped out for a few days. We didn't go out much in Shanghai due to our jet lag and sleep dep. We managed to switch our sleep schedules to the exact opposite and got up every morning and force fed ourselves. We waited a few days before getting another ride to the train station and hopping a bullet train to Suzhou. It was surprizingly smooth despite how fast we were going. Our school contact and new friend, Gordon, met us at the station with a van and took us to our hotel. The ride there was eventful. We ended up turning down a side street we thought the hotel was down, which turned out to be one of the original streets, thousands of years old. The street kept getting narrower and narrower until we could no longer fit. We had to reverse the entire length of the road with scooters at our hood waiting to getting around us, all the while honking and yelling. Every resident of the street came out to watch the idiots reverse down the entire street. It was stressful at the time but looking back at the situation now it was hilarious! Needless to say, we finally found our hotel, The Royal Garden Inn, in old Suzhou, overlooking a canal. We have been here since last Tuesday, and are quite ready to leave this Wednesday and move into our new apartment. At this point we are starting to feel normal again, the kids are on their regular sleep schedule, and we are adjusting to the changes in life style and pace. Most people we've met have been very nice and helpful. They are really curious when they see us, thus staring whenever we walk by, but we are getting used to this. We will take many more photos and write more stories as time progresses and we get settled. Lots of love to all who have been so supportive during this transition. Until next time. Zài jiàn!
- comments
maggi glad you got there safe! :) Love you!
James Love the story! Tried to ring a few times but I guess your Skype isn't up yet. Cheers!
Deborah Lee Meg! Just figured out that you guys are in China ... CHINA! What an exciting journey! Will be following the blog and the pics -- and sending you all love and light on your amazing path.