15 hours til the journey begins...

Today was presh.

We had chrch, rocked out some african/chin.ese/english tunes, ate middle-eastern food, then wandered around the tourist street with my friend's visiting parents and my friend's visiting friend (so fun for my friends to have visitors and to get to take part in the festivities!).

Then we ate green tea blizzards. YUM.

Since my new friend Mary is a doc, we sauntered our freezing toes into the Chinese Medicine Museum and took a little peek. It was choc-full of fake animal hides, jarred herbs, and other random things to cure "fear," "anxiety," and specific organ ailments.

It was cold inside (like every building here) but it was beautiful:

At the end of the museum there is a working pharmacy where pharmacists can be seen divying up the herbs for chinese medicine prescriptions. It didn't look too precise to me, haha.

the pharmacy was a huge tourist attraction...

Around dinner time we said our goodbye's...

And I got to say the most glorious words known to mankind...

"I'M LEAVING FOR AMERICA TOMORROW."

Tomorrow afternoon I leave my home to walk a few blocks with my suitcases to the bus station where I will board a 3 hour bus to Shanghai. I'll be staying in a hotel near the airport, then taking off Tuesday morning and arriving home about 20 hours later via Detroit!

Because my flight leaves from Shanghai in the morning, I have to head there tomorrow because there is no decent way to get to Shanghai in the morning early enough. That means I'll have an evening of chilling in the hotel alone, reading, and being creepy people watching. One of my favorite things to do is watch people in the international terminals of airports. I've seen my share of marriage proposals, tacky signs, tears, awkward hugs, the "run and jump" greet, strangers shaking hands, and matching tourist groups with big eyes and bigger suitcases.

Speaking of suitcases, I packed up in about 30 minutes tonight.

This 2 day journey is old hat. And it's comforting going this way around the world. Whatever I need, I can get there. Coming here...that's a different story.

Oh America, you and your Target/Publix/salad and sandwhiches glory are so close...yet so far away...

15 hours til the journey begins!

walk slow. xoxo.