what day is it?

I seriously had to ask myself that question this morning and it took looking at my phone to actually get the answer. Wednesday?  Seriously?

We had an awesome weekend in Finland (more on that to come), but knew it meant a bit of craziness to make it work as an “in-between” trip from London to Shanghai.  That “bit of craziness” was more like a bit of a nightmare.   One which included an hour flight from Rovaniemi to Helsinki with a 3 hour layover, a 3 hour flight to London where we had to pick up our stored luggage that we had dropped off on Friday afternoon before departing and another 3 hour layover, then an hour flight to Paris and yet another 3 hour layover before boarding our 11 hour flight to Shanghai.  We were up at 6am Finland time and didn’t board our last flight until 11pm Paris time which was 10pm London time and we arrived at 5pm in Shanghai where it was as dark as midnight before we reached our hotel.  So, I of course awoke at 3am this morning ready to start my day…just not sure which day it was exactly.

Needless to say, we’re going to have a little jet lag plaguing us for the next few days.  I usually do worse coming to Asia, although this time it is only a 5 hour difference we’re battling, so maybe it won’t be too bad. 

Right now I feel all out of sorts, like my circadian rhythm is trying to keep time with a toddler jazz band.   Of course, the poor Wife developed a cold somewhere between Finland and Paris and has to go to work, so I really shouldn’t complain.

Through all the tiredness, I did feel incredibly anxious and excited as we were descending into Shanghai.  That’s a feeling I haven’t had in a really long time and I’ve missed it.  There is something so thrilling about landing in a foreign land knowing everything will be, well, so foreign.  To explore, observe and learn about cultures so different from your own is by far my favorite part of traveling and I’m ready to see, touch and taste everything China has to offer me.  Okay, maybe not taste everything, because I know they have some insanely bizarre eats here. 

So far our hotel is a freaking dream compared to the one in London.  Our room is so comfortable and other than the hard-as-a-rock bed we couldn’t be happier. It isn’t like anybody is sleeping around here anyway.

zzzzzzzzzzz...

I just had to go on and on about how well we were doing with our jet lag, didn't I?

I guess I was right about the exhaustion letting me sleep so long the first night because we were both awake at 1am and then again at 5am. After about 30 or so minutes we decided not to fight it and just get up and go to the gym. Of course this could have been due to the fact that Jules was conked out at 7:45pm and I pulled out the toothpicks that were holding up my eyelids at 8:30pm.

We're going to try walking around tonight, maybe grabbing dinner outside of the hotel or something to try to stay awake longer. It's pointless really, but you never give up trying to rid yourself of the lag. You think you can somehow trick your body into getting on track, but the theory that you need 1 day for every hour difference always holds true for us. We'll spend the next two weeks wrestling with it and then like flipping a switch we'll be staying up until midnight and fighting over who's turn it is to get in the shower first in the morning.

It's almost noon here and I've been researching weekends all morning. I'm now dying for a nap. Dying.

Will I listen to my body and lie down? No, I'm going to do the stupid thing and go out and walk around. Even though I've just written it down and know it's an unfair fight- I still think I can overcome the lag!!

7pm bedtime, here I come.