China Day 8

Our last day in China mostly involved the process of leaving China which was harder than coming in.  Our flight didn't leave until 4pm so we had until 1pm until we left on the bus.  My brother, Nick and I decided to try to go to church since it was a Sunday morning and the local ward started at 8:30.  We had general directions as to the whereabouts of the meeting place so we set off.  After two taxis and walking around too much, we found the right place and walked in as they were finishing the sacrament.  We stayed for the rest of the meeting and Nick ran into two of his mission buddies not even knowing they were in the area.  After church, we went back to the hotel to finish packing.  We still had quite a bit of time before we left so we explored the hotel a bit.  We checked out the pool to see what it looked like seeing as it was never open when we were around and then went to the top floor to get a view from the revolving restaurant.  We checked out and were on our way to the airport around 1 pm.

The check in process at the airport was crazy.  The people at the counter didn't speak much English and we all had to make sure that our bags were checked all the way through to LA instead of just our stop in Beijing.  We finally all made it through the check-in process and through security.  We made sure to fill up our water bottles before getting on the plane because we were looking at a long trip ahead of us.  We tried to get something to eat while we were at the Shanghai airport but once we were through security, there was no where to really buy anything to eat.  We were fed on the plane, but it was really gross.  As everyone was finishing up their meals, we hit some crazy turbulence, like what you might see in a movie almost.  Trays were flying everywhere, people were madly trying to put their seat belts back on as they were being tossed around, people were screaming, and I even saw some coffee leave a man's cup and fly at least a foot and a half into the air.  During this whole time, my brother and I were laughing our heads off.  It was very much like a roller coaster.

At the Beijing airport, we made our way over to the international section.  We had to go through customs to leave the country which was more intensive then when we came in.  They stamped our passports again and had us fill out an exit card.  We then had to go through security again (I was patted down each time we went through security in China, their metal detectors are really sensitive!) and we weren't allowed to take any water through even though we could have only gotten it at the last airport!  It wasn't too big of a deal as I had two more empty bottles in my bag to fill up before our next flight.  We had a few hours so we stopped at Pizza Hut for some real food.  We sat outside our gate for about an hour before we were able to board and when we did board, we found another security checkpoint!  Yet again, they took our water.  A twelve to thirteen hour flight is not very fun without water.  The plane we took back to LA was much nicer than the one we came on.  We each had our own screen in the chair in front of us and we could choose which movies or TV shows to watch and there were even games to keep us entertained.

We got into LA around 5pm on Sunday night (just an hour after we left Shanghai) and then proceeded to go through US customs which took about an hour.  I stayed at my brother's house overnight and then flew back to Utah the next day.

I have been back in the states for a week now and as much fun as I had, I am glad to be back.  Jet lag really kicked my butt (I realized that from the time I woke up the last day in China to the time I went to bed on Monday night in Utah, it had been 54 hours and I had only gotten about 7 hours of sleep), I think I'm just now starting to get over it.  I really missed eating with a fork and being able to eat chocolate any time I wanted (I just didn't see much of it over there...I really missed desserts).  All the smells around me are back to normal.  I can text my friends whenever I'd like.  Once my appetite came back, I ate a huge plate of pancakes, eggs, hash browns,  and steak at IHOP and enjoyed a lovely burger at Five Guys along with a root beer (I really missed root beer).  It's funny though, it's not that I have to have these things or that I enjoy them even all that regularly at home, it was more of the fact that I couldn't enjoy them while I was in China, that and those things are home to me in a way.