Arrival in the Middle Kingdom.

That…. was a long time in a plane. The first hop from Seattle to Seoul was just under 12 hours. It was raining hard in Korea and the wind made it sort of a sketchy landing. Also, violent turbulence led to a sudden drop in altitude that made most of the cabin scream in terror. That was a “we dying?” moment I don’t care to relive. The two hour hop to Shanghai was much smoother.

Flying into Shanghai was interesting. I’ve never seen so many large ships just off the coast. The vast majority of them weren’t moving. My best guess this is the disruption in supply chain issues being seen with my own eyes.

Customs… The language barrier is scary. Makes me think of my kiddos from PreAlgebra that didn’t speak English. Knowing you don’t understand every conversation going on all around you and needing help at that moment put me in a frozen mode. That was a quick dose of empathy that I’ll be able to call on at a later date. There were some airport workers that didn’t want to have to deal with me, and others that were super helpful.

Sleep…I’m super burned out and sweaty. Need a shower badly. Got into my first three day quarantine hotel. Here’s the view.

I complimented a young lady on her bright green shoes using Mandarin. Yeah, I had to use my cheater app on the phone to translate it. Of course she smiled and replied “thank you” in perfect English.