Flight to Shanghai - June 23

I spent Monday night with Christian and Lori in downtown Tucson, in prepartion for an early a.m. flight to L.A. and then on to Shanghai. Christian woke me at 5 a.m., Lori had fresh coffee, homemade scones, lemon curd, and mesquite jelly ready at 5:15 a.m. Chris dropped me off at the Southwest Terminal at 5:45 with his sweet good wishes, a new two gigabyte memory card for my Nikon camera, and a really slick miniature memory card reader. All those years as a single mother have really paid off.

Flight to L.A. on-time. Walked over to the Bradley International terminal and was second in line to get a seat on China Eastern Airlines flight to Shanghai. Consequently, I got a great aisle seat, only two across. China Eastern is a low cost carrier, and coach class is configured eight seats across in a 2, 4, 2 pattern. Some of us gave a little thought to a $350 (one way) upgrade to business class. No one opted for the $3,500 upgrade to first class, so many of those seats went begging. By 2:30 in the afternoon we were out over the Pacific and well into lunch (spicy beef and noodles or fish rice) and Home Video Heroes (with Chinese sub-titles) on the video monitors. The plane is full, about 2/3 Chinese and 1/3 foreigners. Many of the young Chinese families have two or more children so we assume that they are American born.

I'm travelling with about 18 other Americans, mostly from Tucson, most of whom will be teaching with me in Wuhan starting in early July. They are an exceptionally gregarious group. I kid you not. I haven't heard that much talking since the Democratic National convention. I'm seated next to a young Chinese man who is wearing large dark sunglasses and a white gas-mask type covering on his face. Due to the gas mask, he does not speak to me for the next 14 hours.