Day 245: Travel to Nanjing

At the beginning of the day--Sunday (Mother's Day)--I did a lot of grading of response papers for my Short Novel class. Kerry and I also packed, cleaned up a bit, and got ready to go. We left the apartment about 3:30 pm, which turned out to be a really smart idea. We arrived at the Shanghai Railway Station in plenty of time, got our tickets for the train quickly, and then went to KFC for a bite to eat. Then we walked to the waiting area, and there was NOWHERE to sit. It was jammed. But eventually we found a place and sat down. About 16 minutes before 6 pm, they started letting people enter the train. The train ride was uneventful for the most part; I did like the first-class seats. I did more grading on the train. We managed to find a taxi okay, and then it drove us to the gate at NNU.

But.....then the fun started. A student met us there (Jowell, from the Honors College...an undergraduate) and took us to the hotel. We had to walk 20 minutes to get there; I'm not sure why they couldn't just drop us off in front of the hotel. So we get there, and then they want us to look at the room first. It was a small bed, but it's sort of like our bed in the apartment, so we figured we could deal. Then we come to find out that they don't have anything to eat. Jowell offered to order us some food from McDonald's...which he did. Of course they didn't have my first choice (Big Mac), so I just got a Filet-O-Fish. Next, we get a call from the front desk claiming that I don't belong in China. I got very indignant about this and got Jowell to sort this out. I don't blame him for any of this, but I was tired, hungry, and very frustrated. Fortunately, we got our food (and, of course, they forgot the fries), but we just didn't care at this point. At least we didn't have to pay for it. So we ate our food. I tried to relax by watching an old NBA game: Blazers vs. Cavs (Cavs won).

I hope tomorrow goes well. We'll see.

Here's a picture of the outside of our hotel, at night: