People to People Farewell Banquet

On our final night in Shanghai, we gathered for a farewell dinner at the Hotel Riverside on the Bund. See photos of the Shanghai freeway system on our way to dinner. We shared a delicious Shanghai style meal where our again stretched my culinary experience by trying some jellyfish. This delicacy will probably not become a staple of my diet. After dinner we had the opportunity to share our reflections about the experience. It was a fitting end to the experience. Page Keeley was our delegation leader and her leadership had a lot to do with the success of the exchange. Our national guide, Meng Liangliang, was another major factor in making this such a successful experience. He is representative of the young generation in China. He is educated at the university and hopes to visit the states sometime. A third factor was the delegation itself. It is rare to have the opportunity for such talented and diverse professionals to have the opportunity to spend such extended time together, sharing common professional and social experiences. It was a definite growth experience for me. Page plans to organize a reunion at the March NSTA conference in San Francisco and many of us are looking forward to that!

Shanghai at night

Our national guide

For those of you interested, I plan to continue my posts for awhile now that I am back. I have several things that I did not get the time to record, so have decided to try to finish the chronicle of the trip as well as some reflections now that I am home. Hope you will join me. (:

Back in USA

Arrived back in San Francisco this morning. We left Shanghai at 1:00 PM on Saturday and arrived in SF at 7:30 AM on Saturday. The whole time thing is a strange thing. I had never crossed the international dateline in travel before and it is interesting. Now we'll see how long it takes to readjust. I am staying with my dauughter and family tonight before heading back to Iowa tomorrow. It is my goal to stay up all day and then try to get back on schedule that way. I only slept a couple hours on this flight. Happened to  next to the fli8ght attendants' serving station so a lot of activity. I am looking forward to getting home.