Made it to Xi'an

Greetings from China. I made it to my hotel in Xi'an 50 hours after leaving the house Thurs. a.m. It was some trip. I spent the night in Shanghai. I made it through customs, got my bags, got to the hotel, back to the airport this a.m. on the correct flight all without the benefit of a guide. It was interesting. I will have a guide when I need one for the rest of the trip. The trip from Shanghai to Xi'an should only take 2 hrs 15 mins but after we boarded the airplane we sat there forever. I knew we were in trouble when they brought out the food cart to serve lunch while we were still sitting at the gate. We finally got going after sitting there for an hour and 25 mins. I thought I had got lucky but fate and the Chinese government conspired against me. When I sat down on the flight this morning I thought "Wow! These Chinese planes have lots of leg room" then I realized I was sitting in the emergency exit row. The stewardess made me read something that said I was capable of helping others off the plane. About ten minutes after that she came back and said "You move, this emergency, you forienger" So I had to move to a row a few seats back and sit next to the guy that nobody wants to sit next to on an airplane. He sat more in my seat than in his. He leaned across me to talk to the lady across the aisle. He drank 6 or 7 cups of coffee so he had to go the bathroom a lot. He was loud. Fortunatley he did not smell. Unfortunately he took that last chicken and rice lunch so I had to take fish and rice. Now, don't get me wrong, I like fish, just not this fish. I could not eat it. If I am hungry and still can't eat something, it is pretty bad.

I ventured out of the room a little to find something to eat. I wandered around for a while, there were lots of street vendors in the Muslim area. Lots of food on a stick, food is always better on a stick. I did not have any but I am sure I will go back another day. I did go eat at a popular dumpling restaurant. I had the pork and mushroom dumplings. They were very good. I even ate with chopsticks, only because they had no silverware. These chopsticks were not like any I have seen before. They were about the size of a number two pencil. I did pretty well tough, I never resorted to stabbing my food with the chopstick in order to eat.

Well, I know you are more interested in news about Drew. The guide said we would go get him tomorrow at 4:00!!! So by tomorrow morning your time I should have some pics of him up on the blog.

The pics are the plane I took from Atlanta to Shanghai, a 15 hour flight. You can't really tell it in the pic but that plane was huge. I must also say that Korean Air is great. The other pic is my hotel on the right and the bell tower on the left.

I am tired, I am going to bed.

Kevin