Ni Hao China!
by Cinnie on Jan.18, 2010, under China, Intercontinental
We’ve made it! Woohoo! We are actually in China.
It took some time – about 11 hours up in the sky – but here we are.
Yesterday (or is it already 2 days ago – it’s hard to keep track), we flew to Heathrow, London. All went smooth and wonderful up until we reached the Yotel – the hotel where we booked the night. “Hello”, the girl at the desk said. “We are sorry to inform you that the hotel has been closed due since Tuesday due to maintenance.” Awkward silence. After a bit more awkward silence she continued.. “but.. we managed to book you into the Hilton instead”. Hurray! We love her again! 
So up to the Hilton we went! It was somewhat of a walk but definitely worth it. Quite a posh start to our backpack holiday. We had a wonderful sleep, had a bring-your-own boiled egg breakfast in the morning and then had the pleasure of meeting Alon, Sabi and sweet Ella for coffee. This was so much fun! We talked a bit (by far not enough) and they dropped us off at terminal 3 from which our airplane was to depart from. We said our goodbye’s and away we went – to travel the unknown (well.. at least unknown to us).
We had a good flight. We had our own screens so we watched some fun movies and played some games. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to learn more Chinese then “thank you” and “hello”, but we’ve been working on that a bit since we landed. It was quite an adventure to find the right bus at Pudong Airport, but thanks to a very over-excited but super-cute Chinese man we found it and it brought us straight to where we wanted to be. Ohad made a new friend on the bus and acquired some useful knowledge about China, while i was trying to ignore my headache by pretending i was sleeping.
And now it’s several hours later.. We checked into our hostel in Shanghai – Le Tour Traveler’s Rest. It’s a very nice-looking hostel, a bit tucked away from the main street. Our room is great – we even have our own bathroom and a TV! We just had a few hours of sleep and now we’re about to start looking for our first Chinese restaurant.. I forgot to take the camera cable from the room so you all have to wait till tomorrow for some fresh pics, but we really wanted to write our first Chinese post
Hope you are all good, we sure are 
C&O
Update: Added some photos of the Hilton, the Gross’es and the flight. Enjoy!
January 19th, 2010 on 14:00
sounds great.
Shanghai is fun.
wish I could remember the really good restaurant I ate in there…
let us know when you think you will arrive in California. We await you and your tales of adventure
January 19th, 2010 on 20:01
Hey David, great to see you here!
For now we have a ticket to LA on April 6, but this date is changeable, and we might be extending our stays in China & New Zealand. We’ll definitely be in touch when we know for sure.
Hugs to the family!
January 22nd, 2010 on 03:41
Hey
I can see in the picture (which has the cute name “idiots” ??!) that you’re wearing the thingies I brought you from Spain
It seems that you’re having a good time!
me.
January 24th, 2010 on 14:30
1. If we see a blindfold and immediately we play blind then we ARE idiots.
2. We are actually wearing your buttons a lot. Also, we’re trying to explain what they are to Chinese people. Talk about mission impossible.
3. Sometimes, we even press the buttons, just to see what happens. Sometimes stuff actually happens.