track our trek

judy, jon and jorma, whom we met in seoul, put us in touch with jan and ben in shanghai. they graciously invited us to stay with them, so we spent our last few days in shanghai at their lovely home. we have been overwhelmed by how generous people have been to us so far in our journeys...many many thanks to jan and ben (& chihuahuas blaise and danger too!) we are so grateful!  we have freely offered our parents' homes to anyone traveling to the new york or los angeles areas, and of course our door will always be open when we have a home of our own somewhere! we spent a couple more days wandering around shanghai, and enjoyed lovely massages at jan & ben's house one night. on our last day, jan took us on a long bike ride through the countryside to see what some of suburban shanghai used to look like before it was developed. it was lots of fun & quite interesting to see how most chinese people live in small towns and villages on canals and waterways...unfortunately, the camera battery died along the way, so we don't have many pics....gotta make sure that doesn't happen at the taj mahal! lol! i took a spill off the "road" into a ditch when we met up with a big blue garbage truck that had no intention of slowing down on the narrow stretch of concrete to let us pass...i didn't even think the 8-inch raised slab of concrete was wide enough for a truck to negotiate, so it's no surprise i panicked when he passed me with what felt like inches to spare. i figured i'd rather take my chances in the ditch than get clipped by a piece of the truck bed!...nonetheless, we made it back home tired, but no worse for the wear. jan, who enjoys making jewelry made me some beautiful pairs of earrings while we waited to go to the airport...now i'm all decked out with my jan stanton original accessories & feeling a bit more like a girl again! (the tomboy backpacker look gets old sometimes...)