A Long, Long Journey...

We all met at RDU at 6 am on Sunday (photo to left) in a desperate attempt to get better seats (most of us were crammed into the center seats...thanks Northwest!!!!). To no avail. God, I hate that airline.

Everyone was on time, except Carrie -- not just one, but TWO alarm clocks failed to go off. Sounds like a conspiracy. She showed up fairly flustered, but all was OK, since the airport was not that busy.

We flew from RDU to Detroit, and then on to an intermediate stop at Tokyo Narita. Everybody was a bit sticky and crushed from sitting in the middle seats for 12 hours, but we did not look too bad (photo left). Everyone perked up when they found that beer was sold at the airport C-store.

It was a 2.5-hour flight from Tokyo to Shanghai. We were met at the airport by our guide, Vicky, whose English is fantastic. A 45-minute bus ride later, and we were at the East China Hotel, a nice little 3-star hotel used by a lot of tour groups. The students had pretty basic rooms, with twin beds. Carrie and I had nice executive rooms, perfect for entertatining.

A big part of a trip like this is the interchange after hours up in the big suite. Here, y

ou can see students ruminating about the trip. Some of them started dropping off like flies, but we still had a nice time.