From There to Here, From Here to There, Chinese are Everywhere! - March 1st

We woke up and went downstairs for our first Chinese style breakfast. We both took a boiled egg and some bacon, but Montana tried a rice roll thing, which was very sweet and good. LuRue had a bowl of fried rice. Montana ate her breakfast with chopsticks, but LuRue didn’t want to do that transition yet. Looks like there will be no more eating rice with fingers anymore. 

 

LuRue spent the morning resting up, while Montana finished up the video of India. At 1, they got a shuttle to the Shanghai airport. On the shuttle, we met a guy that we both thought was Chinese, until he started talking to us in a clear American accent. It turns out he was from Mexico, but lives in Texas. He was going to China for 4 months to study international business – not very appealing to either of us. 

 

We successfully got through the strict Chinese security and headed to Gate 89 that was miles away. On our way, we found a few strange inanimate couples. One pair was running to catch a flight and the others were sitting peacefully looking at a computer. 

 

While we were waiting for the plane to start boarding, two older couples came up to LuRue and said how they thought they saw her in the Xi’an airport, which we weren’t, but it was a conversation starter, so LuRue talked to them for a while. 

 

When it got time to board, everyone started lining up at the gate. We all stood there for about a half an hour until someone announced the plane would be delayed another half hour. It actually turned out to be another hour, but eventually, we successfully got on the flight. LuRue spent the first part of the flight talking to a young man, mainly because he offered us an Andes chocolate piece. He was going to Guilin for 8 months to study English, so he had his first lesson talking with LuRue. We have been talking to more people in the airports today than all of our airplane trips combined. Montana fell into a weird paralyzed sleep state. 

 

A Chinese style dinner was served on the flight. It was noodles, beef, and a bread roll. Luckily, it was not as spicy as Indian food. Montana and LuRue did puzzles for the rest of the flight. 

 

It was pretty easy to get a taxi in Guilin. Someone told us where to find all the taxi drivers and when we got there, a lady, the cab organizer, came up to us and asked, “Where do you want to go?” The next thing we knew, we were in a taxi heading to our hotel. There were beautiful lights to look at on the way, because it was the end of the Chinese New Year. We found some strange items in our hotel including a gas mask, 2 plastic combs, a shaver and 3 cards with half naked women on them. 

 

We heard some explosions around 10 at night and looked out the window to see fireworks. We stayed up until midnight to see if anything else was going to happen, but nothing did, so we went to sleep.