Our first full day in China - highlights from Saturday, March 19

I'm backing up here a little to catch our first full day here, because at the end of that first full day I literally fell asleep in my clothes at 7:30pm!  So now, one day later I've finally got a minute to go back and highlight some of what that first, very long, very tiring day held.

We woke up very early - 4:30am.  Partly it was due to our times being very off from local time.  But partly it was due to Jim waking up at that hour with a caffeine headache and needing to turn the lights on to scrounge for some Excedrin!  Caffeine was one detail we hadn't thought of.  As we tried to trick our bodies into thinking our nights and days were now reversed, our bodies reminded us not so gently that we hadn't had our coffee for a very long time after what would have been morning! 

 So after trying to snooze for a little bit longer, our day began with breakfast at our hotel buffet - a mix of western and eastern breakfast - eggs and toast, plus fried rice and sauteed snow peas!  We then met our guide at 8:30 to do some sightseeing.  This was not what we had originally planned for our first morning, but with our flight change to two days later, it left us with only one morning in Shanghai.  We figured we would just forfeit sightseeing there altogether, but to our surprise the travel service had planned a full morning of sightseeing before catching our flight to the next city!  So we went to what they call the Old Town portion of Shanghai as well as a place called the Yu Garden.  Then we went to the Jade Buddha Temple.  


The Old Town area had many visual examples of the blend of old with new.  These were some examples I loved...

I can't even put into words how happy I was to see THIS sign!

Even this was a welcome sign, although we didn't eat there!

The Old Town area - the building on the left is a famous Tea House.  I love the new skyscrapers hovering in the background.

This is my personal favorite.  I love the contrast of the old with the new - the new modern buildings just a hazy shadow in the background.

This bridge headed to the Tea House has 9 turns in it

This was in the Yu Garden.  There were many different shaped doorways which all provide a different view of whatever is through the doorway.

Also in the Yu Garden.  A building representing a castle in the clouds.  The tall building as the castle, the white rocks all around as the clouds.

I couldn't pass up a Starbucks!  This is our guide Zhou (pronounced Jo)

I had no idea DQ was all the way in China!

 Moving on to the Jade Buddha Temple.  This was one of the most moving places I have ever been, not because I believe in what they were worshiping, but because never before have I been in a place where my freedom in Christ has been more apparent.  This entire temple area was filled with people earnestly giving offerings and wishes to several Buddha statues.  The air was thick with incense, there were tables full of lit candles, there were bottles of oil being wished upon and then poured into pots on an altar.  It's hard to describe how it felt to be in that environment and yet not bound by any of these earthly rituals.  As I stood in this earthly temple, I had a keen awareness that I was moving through there as a temple of the Holy Spirit, truly a light shining in the darkness.  Two verses come to mind...


"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works so that no one may boast." Eph 2:8-9

and

"You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is within you than he who is within the world."  1 John 4:4 

After finishing the sightseeing, we went back to the hotel to get our luggage and check out, then we went to the airport to catch our flight to Xi'an.  I will say, this is definitely when the jetlag caught up with me.  And the serious lack of food that I had over that last 24 hours.  Getting through the flight, to our next hotel, and finding something to attempt as a dinner was enough to leave me sacked out in bed at 7:30 feeling actually quite sick.  Luckily, 24 hours later as I finally finish writing this, I can say 24 hours has made all the difference and although I am tired I did not have anything close to the struggles of the first day with feeling sick and not being able to eat.  Praise God for that!

Finally, each day I thought it would be fun to list the top 3 things we were thankful for.  Here's ours for today.

We are thankful...

1.  for universal signs (like the restroom symbols we are so used to!)

2. that Haagen Dazs is still Haagen Dazs in China!

3. that there isn't something on American dinner buffets called "Fatty Sheep Slice"

4. (I know I said 3, but this is too good to leave out...)
That when we order chicken in the US, it doesn't come on a  plate with a HEAD!

That's all for now.  We're still a day behind on blogging - maybe tomorrow morning I can do today's highlights so we can get caught up!