Up early and on the bus to Newark airport, we began our adventure. Meeting a pleasant young man from Beijing, we began the halting, laughing, pausing rhythm of speech that is sure to follow for the next month! He looked up words on his phone to talk to us, and we did the same. The woman behind us, originally from the Phillipines, joined in, saying that she wants to travel to China too.
Everything fell into place at the airport, even a delivery of duty free Jack Daniels to squeeze into my bag and carry across the world, along with 20 pounds of art books and a pile of NYC subway maps.
No vegan options on the flight food offerings had us jumping into the trip with cheesy spinach ravioli - and nibbling around a turkey/cheese sandwich. Happy to have the noodle option for breakfast, we arrived in Shanghai and struggled to get our phones working. The ChinaUnicom SIM card seemed connected but we were unable to text back home. We made it through customs - my bag had been TSA-inspected, but all seemed well.
