China: An Untold Story

So I just got home about 2 hours ago! YEAH!
China was amazing in every way you could think...but I'm so glad to be back in my nest!

So now that I'm back...there is a story I couldn't tell until now...after the story you will see why.

Earlier in our trip our group was on the bus for about a 5 hour drive to somewhere.
We pull over about half way for a rest stop. It was raining and we all ran to the restrooms (some of the nastiest ones on the trip...so it wasn't a long stay in those haha) and then some grabbed drinks...etc at the little store.

The tour bus next to ours pulled off before we did, and when it did right there on the other side of it, probably 25 feet away was a mobile nuclear missile!!!!! It was on a long bed truck launcher with camouflage draped over the whole truck...but the missile was just right there, no mistaking it. Of course all our jaws hit the ground. It wasn't anything we ever expected to see...especially at what equaled a rest area back here at home!

So anyway, we get loaded up everyone a buzz about seeing the missile...etc. About 20-25 minutes down the road a silver mini-van pulls up next to us then in front of us honking and motioning for the driver to pull over...it was bizarre. He finally does. Two of four men in the van (four that we could see) get out and board our bus. They are both in tourist clothing...Hawaiian shirts actually...and they do NOT look happy or nice. They speak quickly in Chinese to Dr. Kung and our tour guide then the Dr. Kung immediately turned to the whole bus and asked "Did anyone from the back of the bus take any pictures of the missile truck back at the stop?" John (my roommate on the trip), sheepishly raised his hand (he was in the very back of the bus), and said he took one picture. They immediately wanted to see it. So he went to the front of the bus and showed them the picture, and then they made him delete it. The whole time John is apologizing, and saying how stupid it was, he wasn't thinking...etc. Whatever was needed to stay out of a Chinese prison for 12 years or so...haha.(Can you believe it wasn't ME that took a picture?)

They then said something else to Dr. Kung...and then Dr. Kung asked if anyone else had taken a picture, because the men said there had been TWO flashes from the back of the bus in the direction of the missile.
(WHAT!?!??!?!?!! YIKES) One of the girls had taken a picture of one of the other girls in the back of the bus...but they didn't believe it. So they had everyone in the last two rows of the bus bring their cameras up and go through all their pictures, until they saw there were no pictures of the missile on any cameras.

I honestly thought at first when they boarded, that we were being robbed (sort of like the stories one hears about buses from Nashville going to Tunica, MS to gamble- being hijacked and robbing people going to gamble with all cash...etc)...it was crazy.

Then later in the day we were pulled aside again at a toll station. The driver had to get out and talk to the people there. I have no idea what happened there. They talked to him, and then he paid the toll and got back on the bus. Nothing else was said.

Needless to say...NONE of us spoke of it again and certainly didn't talk to people back home about it on the phone, or in emails or on blogs!!!!! HECK NO!!!! We didn't even use the word missile the rest of the trip...all I ever heard about it again was called the "incident with John and the camera." "THE INCIDENT!"

CRAZY!!!!!! So that's the untold story (until now) from China!