Faster than a MagLev bullet!!!

Monday, March 31
Day 9

All of our hotel breakfasts were great, offering both western and oriental fare.

We spent our final morning in China walking around the hotel area. We happened upon this park where many people were doing their Tai Chi. We kept hearing birds and thought the sound was piped in, but when we walked around the trees, we saw all these bird cages. The local people take their birds to the park and "air them out". Actually we saw this done in a few places.
A highlight of the trip, especially for Duane and myself, was the MagLev ride to the airport. Seven minutes instead of 30 minutes by bus.

That's 431 kilometers per hour or............... 260 miles per hour!!! Keeping up with all the stretching and exercise that we saw, the airline would always have stretching exercises prior to landing. A great idea.........There are so many ways that we are different, but also so many ways that we are the same. A local paper questioned the need for a citizen's travel report considering the Chinese actions in Tibet. I wonder how a foreign newspaper might respond to one of their citizens traveling the USA considering our actions in Iraq?

People are people- "Can't we just get along"...........?

from my sister Judy-

Monday, March 31

Even though we were allowed to sleep in this morning, I think that most people got up early to enjoy our last morning in China. After breakfast, Paul and I took a walk around the neighborhood. The block around our hotel seemed like a delightful, well-kept, middle-class neighborhood. We have noticed that the pavements and public areas are frequently swept, which is in contrast to the occasional piles of trash and garbage that we sometimes encounter. Mark and Carol told us of a park they had found so we walked off in search of it. We obviously took the wrong road because the only thing we discovered were adult stores and x-rated shops. This was interesting to find because Emily told us that gambling and prostitution are against the law in China. The government also has very strict penalties for drunk driving. We decided to take the first right hand turn we could find and ended up in an alley which contained a local farmers' market. Fresh fruit, vegetables, chickens, turtles, fish and eels were all displayed on the ground. It looked like the elderly were out shopping for the day's meals. At the end of the alley we ran into the park and it was a delightful contrast to the city streets. Lush green trees and flowering shrubs edged the rock-lined stream that contained bright orange koi. Many elderly Chinese were exercising and new mothers were wheeling their babies through the park. We were especially aware of the songbirds in the park and were surprised to find that they were all in cages. We found about 8 or 10 small, wooden cages hanging in various trees and each contained a lovely bird that was singing its heart out. We asked the elderly men, who were sitting and listening to the birds, if we could take their pictures and they agreed. It turns out that these men actually own the birds and they take them to the park in the morning. They hang the cages from the tree branches, uncover the cages, and the birds sing their beautiful songs. What a delightful scene for all of our senses! Back at the hotel, we packed up our luggage and headed for the airport. Along the way, we drove through the PuDong area, which is full of high rise apartments and skyscrapers. Everywhere we looked there were large building cranes putting up more skyscrapers. Emily said that China uses more building cranes than any other country in the world. She said that the building crane has now become their national bird. This area used to be the garbage dump for Shanghai. Many of the apartments had laundry hanging out of the windows. Emily, jokingly, said that Chinese laundry is now their new national flag. The bus driver dropped most of our group off at the train station and we took the high-speed MagLev (magnetic levitation) to the airport. This ultra-modern train reached a speed of 431 kilometers per hour and completed the trip in seven minutes. When another sleek MagLev train passed in the other direction, it was a sudden, startling experience. What fun! With Emily's help, our check-in went smoothly. It was sad to say good-bye to her because she, in large part, was the reason for our delightful and memorable trip to China. It was a 5-star experience and one of our more unique trips. We boarded the plane around 3:00 PM and flew for a very long 11 hours. In the process, we somehow found the Monday that we had lost last week. We landed in Los Angeles at 11:30 AM on Monday. Does that mean that we arrived back in the United States before we left China? Amazing! What a wonderful trip and what wonderful memories!