Arriving in China
Trip Start
May 15, 2009
1
5
Trip End
Jun 04, 2009
Shanghai, China
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Everybody on the plane seems to be fever free because no one is carted away and we are not quarantined. Customs is a breeze, but getting luggage is not. Carolyn and two of the students - Jennifer and Crystal - are each missing a checked bag. We spend nearly an hour trying to find somebody that can address the problem and each has to fill out paperwork. Although the problem seems to have occurred on the US end, we are a little leery of whether we will be contacted by Continental.
The Zhejiang University officials are there to meet us at the airport. They have a big bus as a group of students from Rhode Island University join us for the trip to Hangzhou, which is about three hours. Some students are filming and videoing as we travel through the outskirts of Shanghai. Others are sleepy. Some are noticing the rice fields, which are numerous on the Yangzi River delta. One student even spots some corn be grown.
About halfway to Hangzhou, we stop at a rest stop that has a restaurant and convenience store. (China is resembling the US more and more.) Some of the students experience their first squat toilet. It will probably not be their last. By the time we get to the college it is around 8:00 and dark. Checking into the rooms is relatively easy as the students are scattered on three different floors in the single room building. The faculty are in building two, but both these buildings are attached.
The college has a banquet prepared for us at 8:30 and the students get to have their first "authentic" Chinese food. The eggplant dish is especially good. For the meal we eat in a room off to the side of the cafeteria. We are told it is for the short-term programs and maybe in a few days we can eat in the cafeteria. It looks like we are being "quarantined."
