And your voice in my ear is like heaven to me...

...like the breezes here in old Shanghai.

Well, hello friends! Some of you have seen a few pics I sent on email and I promise to add some to the blog soon, but I just wanted to share a quick post right now. Quick...yeah, right...it's me. Hehe.

I landed last night around 10:30PM after a long journey across the world. Poor Ben...I now understand how he feels each time he returns to me. While exhausted, I was just so excited to be home - to see familiar things on TV, to drink cold water, and of course to see Mika - that I did not want to go to bed. No, instead, I stayed up almost toothpicking my eyes open to enjoy the essence of being at home and in the US.

This does not mean that I had a bad time; no, in contrast I actually had quite a good time. This trip was an interesting one. At times I was disgusted while other moments were surreal. Overall, I am so happy that I went and that I now understand all that Ben tells me.

So, what are my big take aways? The good, the weird and the disgusting follow.

First and foremost hearing the Buddhist Monks at the Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou ... wow .... what to even say about it? Wendy thinks it was a special chant in honor of the earthquake...and said that she had never experienced something like that at a temple...we felt so fortunate to unexpectedly come across it.

Next is a shocking introduction to Chinese culture...the introduction of the "traditional chinese restroom". Yeah, at the West Lake, the traditional Chinese toilet was a hole in the ground and no, I am not joking. In a city where there are 5.8 million people (you should see the skyline), I was shocked to see such a thing. Wendy had kindly brought tissue for us...and thankfully, I now knew to travel around the rest of China with tissue tucked into my bag! I was disgusted - I won't even go into details other than there were also no doors in the 'stalls' - but at the same time curious. Angela and I pondered over old people for the rest of the trip...how do they do it? Oh, maybe that's why they do their Tai Chi every morning in the courtyard....

Moving away from my very Western idea towards the necessity for modern plumbing.... it was SO EXCITING to meet Paul and Angela at the airport...and they were such troopers. That night we went to the Jin Mao building for dinner and to the top for drinks at the bar. The financial building (name, anyone?) is being built next to it and what an amazing view we had of the bottle opener top of it. This is where the surreal starting coming in... I can't believe that my husband has access to this extremely cool place.

And onto the next not so pleasant but eye opening item: walking into the terminal at the Beijing airport. When I arrived in Shanghai, I thought I had experienced how polluted China is, but oh no I couldn't have been more wrong. Looking down the corridor at Beijing, we could see smog. Yes, in the building and no, I am not exxagerating. (sp?)

So, the next big thing (although not the next thing we did) was the climb up the Great Wall. It was excrutiatingly hot (thank god Angela brought spray on sunscreen since there wasn't a cloud in the sky), but we all made it to the top of the ridge. We were a little nervous staring up at it from the ground...intimidated by the huge change in elevation over such a short distance...this baby is steep! And so worth the effort - what an outstanding view it was! We were quite fortunate that the smog had cleared out for our hike. What was interesting about the Great Wall was the discrepancy in step size...one that was a foot high might be followed by a 2 inch one...and that made climbing a bit weird...and going down a bit difficult.

Um...what else to note? Oh...how could I forget the aftershock? So, while in the Terra Cotta Soldier museum, Angela says something like, "I think that was an earthquake." I didn't feel anything because I was preoccupied with taking photos. I think Paul agreed with Angela, while Ben notices the lamps swinging and says that's a sign of an earthquake, but we move on further into the museum. A minute later, a guard quickly comes through yelling in Chinese that there has been an earthquake and we all have to evacuate the building....so we (along with everyone else) start running towards the door. Well, everyone except Ben and Paul who decided it was ok if Angela and I were early widows. Thankfully, since it was late on a Sunday afternoon and raining, there weren't a million people in the museum...I think more damage would have been done by hundreds of Chinese people shoving each other to escape (I'll explain the italics some other time). That was the largest aftershock since the big earthquake...they were reporting around China that it was a 6.4 magnitude.

Next thing of note: lines on roads are only a suggestion to the Chinese. After many car rides in Shanghai, Beijing and Xian, we decided we must get Ben life insurance. Last night when I crossed the road to get to my car at the airport, I had the 'crossing a Shanghai road on foot' panic...then realized I was in the US and didn't need to worry that someone would charge at me with their vehicle.

Um...what else? Especially since I should end on a good note...hm. Well, this isn't really good or bad...but the fact that I'm an XL (generally small in US) in Chinese women's clothes was a real eye opener... and shows the effects of healthy eating.

I have many more thoughts on the trip and will make note of them on the pics. I hope to set up something on Picasa this weekend.

A last thought: I had some strange sensations when I made it home. First was getting used to driving again...it had only been 2 weeks, but it was a weird feeling to accelerate and brake again..even steering seemed a bit out of control. Next was desiring fast food and going to McDonald's at 11PM on a Thursday night and seeing the massive crowd there (I finally gave up after 20 minutes of waiting) - no wonder we are so fat in comparison to the Chinese! Last, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge and chugging it...the coldness of it numbed my throat and it actually hurt a bit. But I'm happy for cold drinks again!

Perhaps I should try to go back to sleep...unfortunately, I took a 'nap' from 7-9 pm...probably would have slept the night through, but my phone rang. I hope I'm back to normal by Monday!