Day 5 -- Suzhou and Shanghai, China

A mostly uneventful day today. I woke up at 7:15am and had to help Mom clean out an apartment of one of the GE guys as he is done with the job. Not sure if it is a cultural thing (he is Chinese) or just a personal thing, but I was less than impressed with the condition in which he left the apartment. There was still food in the cabinets, stains on the stove, dishes on the shelves, and about an inch of grease on the stove as well--and that's just the kitchen! Came back upstairs to my parents' apartment and decided to relax for a while. Got to experience Chinese government censoring firsthand; while watching CNN, the picture and sound would blank out as soon as Taiwan or Tibet were mentioned. Also, one of the bigger stories on CNN for the day, Google's (Google.cn) compliance with Chinese censoring through firewalls, was also blocked every time it was mentioned. The newscasters would barely get out "Google" (or whatever the topic was that was to be censored) before everything cut out. And the only reason that I am even able to get to my blog (blogs are blocked in China) is because I am using AOL with our broadband connection to access it. Several expats don't have AOL and just use their standard broadband or LAN and are unable to access sites or even do simple searches for words like 'freedom.' Definitely different than the freedoms we are so accustomed to in the States. Mom, Daniel and I left the apartment at about 1:00pm to meet Jerry and Sally (who are moving home to Colorado) and a driver to go into Shanghai. (By the way, going into Shanghai from Suzhou isn't a regular thing, maybe only once a month, because the commute can really suck if you go at the wrong times of the day. It just so happened that we had to do it 2 days in a row.) Had the driver stop at KFC (or 'Kentucky' as the Chinese call it) and grabbed a quick lunch. I pointed to a picture and actually managed to get a vegetarian sandwich. It was a little different from the veggie patties that we have back home, but good nonetheless. We continued on and arrived at the office of a moving company in Shanghai a few hours later. Jerry and Sally had to pick up their passports from here as the company had to have them for shipping all of their belongings back home. Up until this morning, they weren't entirely sure that they would be able to leave as scheduled, because if there was a holdup with customs, then they wouldn't be able to get their passports back until after the holiday and therefore would have been stuck in China a bit longer. Kind of uncomfortable to be stuck in a country without access to your passport in case you do need to get out. Our driver spoke to the woman at the moving office and told her that he thought it would take too long for us to see our friends off at the airport so we should not go into the airport with him. After a few minutes of back-and-forths and rewording things, he finally understood that we were just going in to get my bag from customs and not staying several hours to see them off. Went from the moving company to Pudong airport on the other side of Shanghai, about an hour or so commute. On the way there, we passed a waterway with cranes (as in equipment, not the bird) in virtually every direction. As I recall from my last visit, there are more cranes in China than any other city in the world. Easy to believe from this vantage point. Wish I could have snapped a picture. Anyway, we arrived at the airport about 5:00pm, helped our friends to the line with their luggage, said our goodbyes, then headed downstairs to call customs. It took about 10 minutes to get through on the phone, then I got to wait 10 more minutes for someone to come retrieve me to get to the other side of customs. After I finally got in, the process was relatively simple: identify my bag from the pile of about 50 bags, follow the employee to the customs check point, let them scan my bag, answer one question about where I came from, then I was on my way. I had to weave my way through hundreds of people, both arriving and those just waiting to meet someone (and believe me, no one is willing to stand aside, move, or even acknowledge your effort to get by aside from the frequent, blatant stares), to get back to Mom and Daniel to be on our way. I did a quick check on the contents of my bag and found that everything was in order and the cheese was still cold. In all it only took a half hour, quite surprising since they said on the phone that they needed to inspect my bag. I think they made me come get it just so they wouldn't have to deliver it all the way out in Suzhou...who knows though. Finally got back on the road and our driver quickly drove us home, weaving in and out of traffic as is customary in China. Dad was home when we arrived, so we all hopped in a cab and headed to meet Sara and Paul (both from Australia) at Yang Yang on Shi Quan Jie (Bar Street). We actually had more traditional Chinese food here. The dumplings were excellent. I could have eaten nothing but dumplings and been plenty happy. We also had some delicious green beans and broccoli and carmelized yams. The yams were awesome, but if you ever try them, eat fast because as they cool, they become rock hard and well stuck to the plate. For the 6 of us, our cost was 180RMB (about US$3.70 per person) and we all over-indulged...again. We took a cab and arrived home at about 9:15pm and went to bed shortly after. In all, a rather uneventful day aside from finally receiving my bag and everything I packed in it (yay!). I am definitely up for some uneventful days here there though as I'm sure it will be go-go-go on the Beijing-Changsha-where ever trip that we have coming up next week.