China Part 1

I am happy to report that our trip is going well.  All of my traveling companions are in good health and in good spirits. We arrived in Shanghai after a very long travel experience. I was going to write, "after a long travel day." But once you've crossed the dateline just saying a "travel day" doesn't quite seem to capture the essence of it. Traveling to China is a travel experience for sure.  

We arrived late on Thursday evening local time and stayed in the airport hotel.  It was so nice to roll our luggage away from the baggage carousel, down the hallway, and into the hotel. It's hard to describe my fist night of sleep here. I was exhausted by traveling so far and being awake for so long yet I was wide awake at 3am local time after just a few hours sleep.  While I was laying in my bed, more on that later, at 3am wide awake I was keenly aware this was not a good thing. I was so tired but my body was so out of rhythm sleep didn't make sense. It fades with a few days and you start to ease into a sleep cycle that is restful.

The beds in China are different. Not bad different but just different. I find a lot of China to be this way, different. This is not a bad thing it is just not the way I am used to finding things or existing in the world. The beds are hard, even in hotels.  They are very firm and at first I wondered how in the world am I going to sleep on that. You do. It's strange, but I sleep just fine on these seemingly impossibly hard mattresses.

We spent our first real day, Friday, touring Shanghai. It is a beautiful city, even in the outing rain in which we experienced it. We saw a cultural museum with a vast collection of Chinese historical artifacts. It was a neat way to see a glimpse into the complex history of this complex nation. We did not have a lot of time to see the city so we took a bus tour. It was a nice way to see a lot of the city in a relatively short amount of time. I have a feeling we did not see the city as it should be seen. It needs to be explored and discovered on foot, intimately. It is rich in culture and history and riding a bus around listening to a pre recorded English version of the city tour, while efficient, is no way to properly see a city like Shanghai.

Our next day was more travel. We flew from Shanghai to Chengdu and from Chengdu drove to Guang'an. It is a beautiful drive through the Chinese countryside.  It doesn't take long to get out of the densely packed urban setting and into the rural farm country. We have spent the last few days in Guang'an and have had a very good time. I preached on Sunday at central church and had a great time. On Monday I, along with my fellow travelers, taught the lay school classes in the morning. In Monday afternoon we went to the "grand canyon" of Guang'an. It was a beautiful rural area and it was so nice to be out of the noisy city for a while. The countryside is beautiful and rustic. We followed a river through a deep canyon gorge for about 2 miles.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers so far. I'll try to keep in touch as I can and look for pictures when I get back.