From Inside the Great Firewall

Is that what it's called - the Great Firewall? I can't get to
Blogger/Facebook/Google+ so I'm assuming China's firewall is the cause.
I haven't had a whole lot of sleep in the last day and the sleep I have had
wasn't very good. Monday morning I took a bus to O'Hare International
Airport then hopped a quick 13.5 hour flight to Shanghai, China. The
flight wasn't bad; it was a bit bumpy and the in-house entertainment needed
more spicing up for such a long trip. I can only watch "Water for
Elephants" and "Red Riding Hood" so many times in one sitting. My
flight landed at 1:30 local time and it was a breeze going through customs to get into the
country.

As I was walking through the snake of people waiting to pick up their loved
ones/co-workers I received a lot of "taxi, ma'am?" calls - I stuck out like
a sore thumb. My coworker had made the airport pickup and hotel
arrangements but I was a little worried about being able to find whoever it
was that was picking me up. My driver was one of the last people waiting in
the pick up line, the very long pick up line I might add!, so anxiety levels
were running high. He didn't speak any English, and my Chinese is
limited to greetings and polite expressions, so we stuck to hand
motions to getting out of the airport.

I haven't looked at a map to determine its exact location but the
airport is near the water - I could see the Pacific (I'm assuming) out
of the windows of the car for a good twenty minutes. I was surprised
by how many trees there are. Some must act as a wave break, there are
a line of coniferous trees next to the shoreline, but there are many
others intermingled with buildings standing well over four stories
tall.

I was also surprised by the number of street signs that are in Chinese
(characters) and in English. I would have thought they'd be in
Pinyin, or perhaps German (on account of the old European area of the
city), but I wasn't expecting English.
After an hour drive to West Shanghai I arrived at my hotel. It is a
very nice hotel, probably the nicest one I've ever stayed in. I'm
stationed on the 16th floor with my room overlooking what appears to
be a river. I had only two hours to shower, get ready, and take a nap
before dinner. The best showers are undoubtedly the ones after a long
bout of travelling.

I had dinner with my coworker J at a nice restaurant. The meal we had
was huge! There were peanuts and radishes to start, then out came the
dishes of tofu, fried fish, spicy mushrooms, beef, cabbage mustard,
steamed shrimp dumplings, a plate of assorted cold food, and finally
watermelon for dessert.

I really miss my best friend G and my cat. A month in China doesn't
seem so long in theory but in practice...