Even though I’m the “faculty member of record,” and I have traveled overseas, I committed the group’s first foul. Just an hour or two after we arrived in Shanghai, I plugged something into the wall… but oops, I used the wrong adapter. Sparks flew! And it blew out the electricity to our hotel room! It took a little while, but it all ended well; it was just a blown circuit breaker.
We also made an unexpected purchase today – a Chinese cell phone. I had to play the role of travel agent when we discovered some hotel issues for the next few nights (more on that tomorrow). That’s when I discovered a local cell phone would be much more cost effective than using my U.S. cell phone at $1.99/minute. So we went shopping. And $75 later, I have a Nokia phone, SIM card and lots of minutes. Hopefully we won’t need them all. So if you’re bored, give me a call.  It might cost you a lot, but it’ll only cost me .1 RMB/minute!  And I promise not to blow it up before the trip ends.

Terry gives up on his U.S. cell phone and buys a Chinese phone. It's already paid for itself.