Hellllooooooo! Can you hear me?
It’s Wednesday morning here in Shanghai right now and I arrived late yesterday. I survived the 14 hour flight and felt spoiled that I had an entire row to myself to sleep. One thing that amazed me was how many children were on the flight. These amazing Chinese women who traveled with their sisters, mothers and friends – all working together to calm crying babies and rowdy children. I spoke a bit to one mother who was traveling back to see her family after two years of not seeing them. “Too expensive,” she said.
It made me realize how lucky I am to be able to do things like this. To travel and see the world.
I’m not taking it for granted for one second.
She asked me if it was hard for me to leave my children. I flashed back to the night before leaving and how I held my daughter in my arms for 45 minutes as she sobbed about me going. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it was very hard.”
But I’m here now and it’s time to embrace this experience.
Last night, after I arrived, we ate a Cantonese dinner filled with dumplings, noodles and so much amazing food that I might have called my muffin top, “my little dumpling” afterwards. Downtown Shanghai is filled with lighted up skyscrapers and observation towers look like Times Square on crack! It made me smile to think about my New York roots and I loved that I was somewhere where I had to crane my neck to see things. It also cracked me up how the driving truly rivals taxis in Manhattan. Here’s one of the pics from my window of the hotel. It’s of the Pearl TV observation tower. Amazing, right?
Today it all begins. We go to Yu Gardens, go on a sidecar tour of Shanghai and then see the famous Shanghai Acrobats. Our internet is quite spotty so I hope to post pics and a rundown of the day as soon as possible.
Stay tuned… The journey with Mandarin Journeys has just begun!
#bucketlistChina
