The Inner Monologue of Ms Murray

Hello fellow bloggers, family, friends and UIUC web surfers!  It will comfort you all to know that all twelve of us have arrived safely here in Shanghai…and it only took a day and a half to do it.  Although I would prefer to never see O’Hare airport again, I must admit having to wait around dealing with delay after delay brought us all a little closer as a group…for some of us we have Lauren’s trivia game to thank for that.  Either way we are here and that’s all that matters.
After a late night turning in, all of us seemed fairly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for our 9AM breakfast roll call…speaking of which, our first meal was interesting to say the least, in fact this “Chinese Diet” may be the cause for the final loss of Liz’s freshman-fifty, but lets face it we aren’t here to eat…we are here to report.  Today we are heading off to meet some experts for our stories at 1PM and then returning to the hotel to meet some students who will help us translating and finding sources.  I am especially looking forward to this meet and greet with our very gracious volunteer students because I will finally get to meet Aisha, the Chinese student from Fudan (the university here in Shanghai) whom I have been in close contact with via email for the past few weeks.  Aisha is a masters student here studying Chinese Literature with the hopes to come to the states to study Journalism, she seems like a very intelligent, driven and enthusiastic person to be working with…I am lucky to have her by my side. 

Needless to say today is a building day and tomorrow is what I would like to call, “heres your good ole push into the deep end, now lets see if you can swim” kind of day.  More later…

new roommate

After nearly two days of traveling and only a couple of hours of sleep, we are finally here. Early today I got my new roommate. Her name is Zhu Chen. She is a graduate student from our department. She is also a Chinese native. She will be helping us translate for a week. She will return to her hometown, Wuhu, south of Shainghai.  She took time from her busy schedule to help us. She is a great person.

I met Zhu in two classes last semester. We were both taking Journalism 480 (intimate journalism) and graphics and Design. Our friendship became stronger this semester after we started sharing our experiences growing up.  Zhu and I are very similar. We have both struggled a lot in order to be where we are.  I am really proud of her for leaving her country and pursuing her dreams and her passion for journalism.

We are extremely lucky to have such talented journalist with us. 

Are we really FINALLY HERE?

Waking up (or not sleeping) to get to the Union Circle Drive by 5 a.m. Tuesday 5/15…... Exciting

The ride from Champaign-Urbana to O’Hare Airport in Chicago inside a limo van thinger…... Three hours

Finding out our 10:42 a.m. flight was delayed to 6 p.m. ...... Flabbergasting

Breakfast with the $7 voucher…... Free

Chilling inside the first-class private lounge area w free food…... $300

Finding out our 6 p.m. delayed flight got delayed 30 more minutes…... Hopelessening

Watching the Flight Info board go from 6:30 to 7 to 7:30 p.m. ...... Maddening

Traveling from Chicago to Shanghai…... Three movies, three meals, 13 hours

Checking into our hotel at 1 o’clock Thursday morning…... Relieving

Settling into our rooms at 2 a.m. Thursday (1 p.m. Weds in U.S.) almost 48 hours after leaving Champaign-Urbana…... PRICELESS.

Shanghai tour start, 31 hours in the making

After our 31 hour odyssey from Champaign to Shanghai we finally were welcomed by Charrise, our tour guide for the trip from the airport to the hotel. Charrise explained wonderfully the meanings of the name Shanghai and gave us a lot of other trivia.

Charrise our special guide in control - holding tight to the bus and telling us about Shanghai:
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Over 24 hours later, we've landed...

Ni hao! (sounds like Knee-how)

We have finally arrived in Shanghai—a city of 18 million people!! It was dark outside so we couldn’t see too much of the city… but my first impressions are that Shanghai is a mix of the US, Europe, and what I would have described as"Chinese.” The architecture varied upon each block we drove past. We’ll see how it all looks in the daylight tomorrow…