We're finally in Shanghai!!!

Well, we finally Shanghai, although it was a full 24 hours later than anticipated!

Our story left off with us being stranded overnight in Narita, Japan, which is a large suburb of Tokyo (similar to what Bloomington is to Minneapolis). At first, our new flight was supposed to leave at 6:30 am. After getting up at 4 am and getting ready to catch our shuttle, we were told that the new time was now 10 am. Therefore, we enjoyed a wonderful Japanese breakfast, although, this time we avoided all raw sea creatures. Afterward, we found out that our flight was now pushed back until noon. This gave us about three hours to kill in Narita. Therefore, we took a shuttle to the train station, near the center of Narita, and began to explore.

We had discovered earlier that Japan is a very lush country. Everything is so green! We found this to be even more true as we navigated through some neighborhoods along very narrow streets, most only wide enough for one compact car to drive on at a time! As we dodged the oncoming traffic, we heard a loud noise in the distance and decided to follow it. This led us to a massive Buddhist temple complex, one of the largest in Japan. We spent the next hour or so exploring, taking in all of the beautiful architecture, landscaping, magnificant statues, and the amazing tiger drums played during one of their ceremonies. (Apparently, the ceremony was for people to get rid of their desires, but we had no clue what was going on. We just watched them, in their vibrant robes, play drums, chant, and burn sticks.) In an hour, we maybe covered a quarter of the entire compound. It would have been a blast to spend the whole day exploring there, but we had a plane to catch at 12 noon, or so we thought.

Upon our arrival back to the hotel, we found out that our flight had been pushed back an hour to 1 pm. Not wanting to wait around the hotel in Narita any longer, we took a shuttle to the airport and began to wait for our flight, along with approximately 300 other Shanghai-bound, yet stranded in Tokyo, passengers. Shortly after our arrival, we found out that our flight had been cancelled outright and that we were to be rebooked on a flight by ANA (a Chinese airline) at 2:15 pm. This made several passengers very upset because it took so long to get us this information. In fact, there was a large group of Chinese passengers who decided that they were going to hold up a sign that read "Protest NWA!". (This made all of the Americans laugh!) At 1:40 pm, they rushed all 300 of us to the ANA ticketing booth and tried to get as many of us on that flight as possible. 288 of them were able to get processed in time. Unfortunately, Jamie and I picked the slowest line and did not make that flight! The two of us, along with Justin, were now stuck at the airport until 6:55 pm until the next Northwest flight left. Through some shrewd negotiating on Justin's part, we were compensated rather handsomely and given a free upgrade to business class on the way to Shanghai.

After spending a few hours shopping at the Tokyo Airport and enjoying the Japanese Subway and Starbucks, we boarded the plane and quickly figured out why sitting in business class is absolutely amazing, which I don't have time or space to describe here! We departed Tokyo shortly after 7 pm, arriving in Shanghai at 9 pm local time and finally felt as if our challenges for getting to China were over. Unfortunately, there was one last hurdle to climb - getting our luggage. The others in our group found their luggage immediately. Mine, (Dave's) however, never showed up. Fatigued from a long day's journey, I staggered to the lost luggage counter and explained my situation to a Chinese worker who spoke broken English. Just as I was about to finish the paperwork (with steam coming out of my ears), Justin informed me that Bryce and Jonathan (two members of our group who were able to get on the earlier flight to Shanghai), picked up my luggage for me because they thought it would save us time. So while I was a bit frustrated with the overall situation, I was glad that my possessions were already at the hotel.

Finally, we took a taxi van into the Shanghai night, met up with Brian (the dean of Hometown China), and checked into our hotel. At that point, we did our best to get a good night's sleep, however, jet lag decided to kick in at that point, leaving Jamie and I restless for most of the night. In all, it turned out to be quite an exciting day, despite all of its frustrations. Now, we finally get to go to work! (Just one day later than we originally planned!)