Its winter time in northern China I was told. I didn’t know how cold is it but I plan to buy the necessary winter clothings when I get to Hong-kong. I looked up shanghai in Google earth and look around the place where I would be in a few days. I saw Peoples square in Shanghai China, I will visit this place. I did not bring extra pants only a few shirts. I left the house wearing only a smile and a shorts and a tribu sandal with my stroller. I only carried traveler’s cheque and no Philippine peso coz I already spent my every PhP last night as farewell blowout to my board mates. When I checked-in my things in Mactan Intrtnl Airport, I was told to pay terminal fee of 150 PhP. Money changers don’t change traveler’s cheque so I have a problem but when I check my belt wallet I was lucky to have found a 2 USD keepsake so I changed it and I’m still 50 PhP short. So I approached one PAL officer and told him my awkward predicament. One PAL officer was kind enough to give me 50 PhP, I did not beg-that’s not the way to do it, I only asked him for help whether they can waive 50PhP off from my terminal fee. Anyway it was the first of the string of my many unfortunate or unsuitable experiences in this trip. My second is still not far from home, when I arrived in NAIA, It came to me I have to pay another 550 PhP as terminal fee for international trips. I roam around looking for banks, all are closed its Sunday but I still was lucky to find one money changer and was able to get the currency of my heart. Aboard Cathay Pacific huge Boeing aircraft, Pls turn all your digital gadgets off. But during taxi to the runway, I got out my digicam and set my flash off so I wont be caught using it, I took a picture of one of the pretty stewardess, alas! The flash came out and they all turned to me, quickly and regrettably I resigned down sank a little lower to my seat feeling very stupid. Then I asked the stewardess to get me a vegetarian meal, with a Chinese charisma, is vegetarian noodles ok for you sir? That would be fine la. Then my seatmate got envy, I should have asked the same she said. After about 4 hours of flight I arrived in Hong-kong. I have 3 hours waiting time for my next flight to shanghai. So I look for winter clothes but time ticked so fast and the only thing I bought is only a timberland jacket. I thought it’s cheap to buy in HK than home. I was mistaken. Then the next time, I was beating the time to get to my flight. 2 min after I was seated, the gate closed. And the stewardess came to me and said in Chinese, so I told her English please. She spoke again and I said English please- again. Then she spoke again the third time, and seeing that I still did not get it, she just put the food pack in front of me and another one for my seatmate and moved on. My seatmate stared long at me confused, maybe trying to evaluate and predict where in mars I come from. I looked at the food; it was chicken and rice and my seatmate’s beef and noodles. That’s it, I finally figured it out. She was trying to ask me "chicken rice or beef noodles?" but I was not able to get it coz she still has Chinese accent. Luckily I did not get my digicam again to shoot her this time. You still don’t know half of the story. After 2 hours we arrived in Pudong airport in Shanghai. It’s very cold outside; water is most dense at this so called critical temperature. Below 4 C water expands and above 4 C water also expands. This is amazing property of water. If it has not this property, all life in bodies of water will be dead during winter. Water contracts as it approaches solidus temp but just before it freezes to solid at 0 C, it expands so it becomes less dense and floats, and it serves as the thermal insulator between the warmer water below and the ever decreasing temp outside. If ice doesn’t float, all water bodies will be frozen from bottom up and it’ll dead. It’s too cold outside sir. I was the only passenger wearing shorts and only having sandals with no socks; at least I have a jacket. I’m now the only passenger left inside, and there’s a coaster outside waiting for me to get down. Soon I felt the unwelcome coldest air touch my toes and I was like having no toes at all. I still feel lucky coz my partner in travel got no jacket. Fairchild already arranged a car for us to take us to Suzhou and we were lucky the Chinese driver got a good skill in non-verbal communication. This is worse than I imagined, I thought majority of Chinese can understand a little English. We traveled 2 hours to the industrialized province of Suzhou. We have a friend from Malaysia who can speak Mandarin and English so we depended on him for translation and guide around. I asked him to write me down important translations like send me to my hotel, send me to the shanghai train station and where is the CR. Mandarin is not the dialect in Suzhou so miscommunications sometimes also happen and the result is I got lost. I tried to talk to the driver in mandarin which my friend taught me. But he cannot understand coz I have different accent so next time id rather walk rather than talk in mandarin to taxi drivers. I still remember my way back to my hotel. There are condom vending machines on the street walls and sometimes pretty girls open the door when you pass by night clubs and tempt you to get inside handsome. I searched for SDA church somewhere and I found one and wrote down the address. So on the Saturday Sabbath morning I took a taxi to shanghai and called my friend who works in shanghai to meet me at the train station and ask him to guide me to the address. We followed the street map and walk for 3 hours just my estimate until we come across a big detour-sign ‘construction going on’. We cannot get to church since the roads are blocked and it’s already 1 pm so we went to people square and to xian-xang flea market and meet other old friends from Cebu who are now working in shanghai. Then Sunday came and its time to get back home. We took the 15 minute bullet train ride from our hotel to the airport instead of 1 hour by taxi. Shanghai magnetic levitation train can reach 331 kph as its top speed. This is very fast ride going home.
The man up there is coming back soon, and he wants us to meet Him up in the air with a speed more than a lightning, He will send us home to the mansions he prepared for us. Let’s always take our guide wherever we go so we won’t get lost. Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth, the book really is true to the name some people give to it. He is coming soon, investigate and get to know more of the details so one wont be surprised at the turn of events that leads us all the that final great destination.
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