Arrived in Shanghai

All settled in at my home away from home. Kinda sleepy so I think I’ll be okay with jetlag. Both plane rides were pretty successful – I didn’t take the direct flight from O’Hare to Shanghai since it was a lot more expensive so made a stop at LAX. I love airports. Love O’Hare. I like how busy it is and that everyone has a purpose there. Fun place for people-watchers. And to throw in a negative, the first thing I notice is that Starbucks is pretty much double the usual price…so that was sad. Depriving myself of Starbucks when I actually kinda needed it. Yeah I know, first world problems. I really suck.

I made friends with the nice, precious retired lady sitting next to me on the Chicago to Los Angeles flight. She was from L.A. and had just been to Chicago for the first time so I got to hear all about this lil’ trip she had with three or four of her girlfriends. She was a sweetheart! The kid on the other side of my was some Asian dude who had his earbuds in the whole time and probably thought I was some weird chick making friends with a bunch of old people.. which is actually true so I guess I don't blame him.

Thought I was going to have to search or even shuttle to get to my next gate once I was at LAX but instead I literally just walked to the end of the hall. 2 hours to people-watch. I sat at a little pod gathering of chairs in the waiting area by my gate and eventually realize I’m sitting next to Tom Greene. Less than 20 minutes of stepping off the first plane and seeing famous people..okay L.A. And then after wandering the duty-free store, staring at alcohol and perfume for a bit, deciding whether to get overpriced Starbucks or not, and calling my parents, I realize I should probably eat food. So I’m waiting in line for my $8 Caesar salad from Burger King and get a “Go blue!” from this man near me since I’m wearing some Michigan t-shirt. I figure out he’s an alumni and majored in music. I tell him I’m actually minoring in music. He asks if I know Mark Clague. Uh what, he was only my musicology professor this past semester and asked me to help lead the business side of this student org (Arts Enterprise)… Oh. Don’t worry, the alumni was actually one of the original founders of this organization. So not only is he a Michigan alum that knows my professor, but he founded a club I’m helping run? SMALL WORLD? Yeah. Sorry for the stretched out version of the story but I get excited about coinkidinks like that. If I didn’t choose to go to Burger King at that time (I was being indecisive about where to eat, if to eat, and when to eat if i did eat), if he didn’t say “go blue”, if I didn’t wear a Michigan shirt… keeps going. So much aligned and it twas exciting. Don't make fun.

Took this 2 years ago the last time I flew to Shanghai, so this is kinda a lie within this post.

Now onto the last 13-14 hour stretch from LA to Shanghai. First/business class consisted of mostly American businessmen and economy was literally all international Chinese college kids going home, plus me. (By the way, isn’t it always great to walk past all the nice seats on your way back to economy? And watch as the space one seat took up all of a sudden becomes two seats?) I figure out I’m surrounded by mostly kids from China because the flight attendant ran around with the departure slips asking people “Anyone not Chinese?” and by Chinese she meant Chinese citizen – I had to clarify since it felt a little weird being technically ethnically Chinese but not a citizen like she meant. But yeah, I was the only U.S. citizen in my vicinity. Guessing most people are like my sister and still in school so the passengers around me were mostly all Chinese college kids going home...for the first time in at least a year. It's fascinating that so many parents in China are sending their only child halfway around the world for school (and I thought USC was a tad far). Just shows how much education is and should be valued though. Finished reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, sat in the dark bawling while watching The Vow, and watched most of Hugo. Passed out on and off for who knows how long. The flight wasn't too bad.

Okay peace, about to die..bedtime. And it's just around midnight. Normal sleeping schedule, leggo.