Getting there..

First let me start off by saying that 21 hours of flying time is no fun. Factor in the two hours I was at JFK before my flight, my three hour layover in Dubai, and the extra hour and a half of disembarking the plane and taking a taxi into the center of Shanghai, I traveled a good 27-28 hours straight. Add into that crossing twelve time zones and having a "express" version of nighttime and a shortened version of day time and the fact that its early Saturday morning but its really Friday afternoon to my brain and I am all kinds of effed up right now.

The flights were uneventful, if anything. Flew over the north African coast and Saudi Arabia on the first flight and Pakistan and India on the second. The Indonesian Robotics Team made a celebrity guest appearance on the JFK to Dubai leg, so you know that held my attention for about 20 minutes. I mean, its not every day you run into the I.R.T!

Plane food was decent, although I'm positive they put some type of anti laxative in the stuff. Lets just say I have had a few "difficulties" with a certain bodily function in the last 24 hours.

Upon arrival I'm China, both the metro and the buses were no longer running so my only option was to take a taxi.  Collecting my bags and clearing customs was suprisingly a piece of cake, cosidering I AM in China, and I followed the signs for.the taxi queue.  Right at the entrance to the queue was a well dressed gentlemen who appeared to me as someone who was going to translate the address for the cabbies. I handed him the paper with directions to the hostel, he said it was a flat fee of 350Y (~$55) to the center at night (a bit steep I thought, but reasonable considering I was informed during the day it would cost between 225Y and 250Y).

This is when it got a bit strange. He led me not towards the queue, but away from it, through a small stairwell into a parking garage where it looked like I was going to take a small shared hotel shuttle. We walked right past the shuttles. Further into the parking garage we.arrived at two UNMARKED 'cabs', my bag was promptly tossed in thr trunk, and they asked for payment up front.  Having become hesitant, I refused to pay until I arrived at the destination. Surpringly, the taut was okay with that. The driver spoke no english and I sat quietly in the rear seat as we sped along an elevated highway into downtown. At this point, I was less worried about me being taken somewhere I didn't want to go and moreso if the guy could find the damn place.

We eventually did, but I learned quite a bit about Chinese driving during that hour long ride:
1) it is not uncommon for a car to come to a complete stop in the middle of a five lane highway, busy intersection, or highly trafficked street. I saw this happen maybe a half dozen times, most on the highway.
2) whenever a car passes another, its common practice to flash your highbeams at the car a good 3 or 4 times. Ya know, just in case they aren't paying attention to their mirrors.
3) the governent has radar speed detectors set up maybe every 5 miles on the highway. This leads to high speeding between checks, and breaking last minute to go through one as to not get a ticket. And they would get a ticket: they take a picture of your car as you pass under.

All in all I'm happy to be laying in a bed. My body is telling me that its not bedtime, but I know better. Going to try and get adjusted to the time difference real quick and head to bed. Tomorrow is a full day of sightseeing!