Shanghai Surprise

Yeah, what I said in that last post about going to Xi'an? That didn't so much happen.

We headed to the Beijing airport this afternoon with every intention of getting on our flight, but China Eastern Airlines had other plans. The plane that was supposed to take us from the capital out to Xi'an ran into mechanical problems at the airport on the other end. The crew brought the plane to Beijing for repairs, and was then scheduled to fly BACK to Xi'an, pick up the original passengers, and finally come BACK to Beijing for our flight (given they could fix the problems). They couldn't switch us to a later flight or another airline because everything was all booked up.

The end result of all these delays (and the uncertainty surrounding China Eastern in general) was that we bagged the trip to see the terra-cotta warriors and flew south to Shanghai instead. Now we have a few days to see the sights in China's financial capital, which is very exciting.

Just one photo today, since it was a travel day (and an odd one at that). It's a shot of me and Shannon outside of the building where the Chinese Communist Party was born. As you might expect, it's an unassuming building, now in a high-fashion, proto-capitalist section of Shanghai.

Lots to see tomorrow, since we only have two days to see Shanghai, so I'm sure we'll have more pictures to share.