Day Six

I used to wonder what it would be like to be a rock star with early wake-up calls, bus rides everywhere and plane rides every other day. This trip gave me a taste of it and while it was great, it was really tiring. This morning, we had a wake-up call of 5 a.m. so we could pack our bags and leave those suckers outside of our doors so that they could disappear and meet us in Shanghai like they had done from Beijing to Xi’an and from somewhere to our rooms in Beijing. One thing that was weird about out trip was knowing whom to tip and whom not to. I didn’t tip the guys who brought our luggage up cause I honestly had no idea if I was supposed to or not, but found out as we stood up that I was to tip “Smiley,” the guy who massaged my feet, ankles and calves while staring at me. Cab drivers, however, refused to take tips. Waiters and waitresses? Nope.

We had a fun little experience in the Xi’an hotel as we stood around waiting for delivery of our boarding passes. We were standing around talking when someone noticed that we were getting our pictures taken with locals without even noticing it. These locals would walk up near us while someone snapped a quick photo. When we realized what was going on, myself and a few others invited them in to take a photo with us and we gathered around and took pictures with these “fans”, further adding to the feeling that we were celebrities of sorts. That was also compounded by the pointing and stares and whispers that we would experience whenever we went anywhere. It was cute throughout the trip and made you feel kind of important, so it didn’t bother me at all and kind of made me smile when I would notice it.

Following yet another plane flight, this time to Shanghai, we touched down in Shanghai, a city where change was noticeable even from the air as we flew over the ocean and the port before touching down on the ground in the final city of our China tour. We also met our final guide, Molly, who was joined again by Lili, whom a few us had really taken in as one of the group. She had become a really good friend, particularly after our time together in the karaoke bar in Xi’an where we all exchanged the definitions and pronunciations of curse words, a few of which she used freely to the delight of us all. In fact, a fast learner, she learned how to pair them with hand and facial expressions to add emphasis to slang and amuse us that much more.

Our first stop in Shanghai was another food place, this one not nearly as good as the ones we had visited in Xi’an and Beijing, which left some of us skeptical about our food future in this new city. In fact, even Lili said she didn’t like the food in Shanghai, which worried us further. Luckily, this seemed to be the worst of our eating experiences for the trip.

After this meal, we made our way to our final hotel … and what a hotel it was! A $500/night hotel, this place was gorgeous and I had a huge room, with a huge bed (with padding!!!) and an air conditioner that got my room to lie 4-degrees Celsius as I just wanted to know what it was like to be cold again after so many days of humid heat. The bed was big enough that I could lay each way and not touch the ends, the shower/bath was beautiful, the complimentary water was heaven-sent and there was a huge, flat screen television that was far nicer than anything I had back home. Did I mention it had air conditioning?

We then made our way to an historic restaurant that Ulysses S. Grant, Albert Einstein and some others had eaten at (How did Grant get out to China? Boat? Jeez!) and then went back to the hotel. From there, a few of us went to a local nightclub that featured Disney characters all over the wall. We got to talk to Molly and found out that she was a lot of fun to be around and we all had a chance to dance together as a group. It was a really fun night and one that I won’t ever forget. I got to bed around 2:30 in the morning, tired, exhausted and looking forward to more the next morning.