2011 Day 1-2
Sent 1/10/2011
Every time I fly to China I am reminded of a bit Louis Black did on traveling across the Pacific (“place your hands on either side of your head and squeeze as hard as you can for 15 hours, and don’t stop! Don’t f@*&$@# stop!). I think he nailed the feeling… I killed time on the plane as best I could; spent a lot of time hanging out in the rear galley of the Boeing 777 chatting with the other restless folks. On these long flights, the crew doesn’t seem to mind this, and in fact they let us help ourselves to the beer and wine – had a few glasses of cheap red boxed wine and swapped stories with the China Marketing Director for Ford; an American woman who has lived in Shanghai for the past year. I also met a young American woman who teaches English to the children of Japanese expats living in China.
My hotel, a Ramada, was right outside the Shanghai airport. It was around 8:00 PM local time when I arrived. Having not slept for going on 24 hours now, I knew I needed to stay awake as long as possible to help the time adjustment. The hotel had a basement bar which was completely deserted except for the bartender and another girl who kept offering to give me a full body massage – and I am quite sure she meant the FULL body. I declined, but maybe a 95% body massage wouldn’t have been a bad idea after so many hours of travel. Oh well.
I did manage to sleep for 6 hours and woke up just before the 5:30 wakeup call I had arranged the night before. This is a good sign – maybe the time adjustment will be easier than the last trip where I woke up at 2:00 AM for the first few days.
At around 6:45 AM I took the hotel shuttle back to the airport for the 8:55 AM flight to Hong Kong. However, when I went to locate my flight on the departure board, it was not listed. It didn’t say “delayed” or “cancelled”, it just wasn’t there! I asked the girl at the information desk who spoke little English for help and all she could tell me is “no flight”. Not much help. A call to my travel office confirmed that the airline, China Eastern, had cancelled this flight 2 weeks ago – nice of someone to let me know… The airline did guarantee a seat on a later flight which left at 10:00 from a different terminal. After about a mile of walking, partly on moving sidewalks I did manage to find the correct ticket counter. On the way I found this sign – I was glad to see this – for a moment I wasn’t sure where I was!
The scene at the ticket counter was very typical of many transactions here. The agent, who spoke decent English took and tagged my checked luggage and asked for my ticket. I explained that I was confirmed on a flight which had been cancelled and that his airline had moved me to the new flight – And after some confused looks, he called over a supervisor who in turn called 2 other people over and before long, there were five people standing behind the agent, pointing at his computer display and talking to each other, they all seeming perplexed. In the end, one girl came over, apparently the only one working there who knew what she was doing, and got things taken care of. 6 people to print one boarding pass…
The flight to Hong Kong was full, many families with small children. I had an aisle seat and about half way through the flight while playing solitaire on the IPad, I noticed a young boy, maybe 2 years old was standing in the aisle next to my seat mesmerized by the dragging of the cards across the screen. I let him drag a few cards himself. His parents were looking on and I gestured that this was OK. Soon a second boy arrived. Now this was probably a bad idea, but I had “Despicable Me” loaded, so I started playing the movie while aiming the screen towards the aisle. Instantly there were 6 kids from 2 to probably 7 years old at my side, smiling, laughing at the movie and demonstrating the English they knew, and most seemed to know some. I was beginning to realize what I had gotten myself into and was wondering how I was going to get out of this, but a little turbulence and the “fasten seatbelts” sign illuminating solved the problem for me. It was fun nonetheless.
After landing in Hong Kong and a series of train and shuttle bus rides, I arrived at my hotel for the next 2 nights, the Novotel in Wan Chai. I chose this hotel for one reason; it was close to this place – The Old China Hand
– a cool dive bar and British pub I stumbled across on my last trip. The patrons are nearly all expats, Brits, Australians, Americans, Germans, etc… A really friendly place. I met a guy named Owen, a New Yorker who lives in Hong Kong, who invited me to join some friends tomorrow morning the watch the BCS Championship game tomorrow morning. I may do this.
At around 11:00 PM while still at the pub, my phone rang. It was my Boss Sam who I am supposed to meet tomorrow. He called to tell me he was no longer coming to China, and that he gave his 2-weeks notice this morning. Crap!! That is disappointing – not only is he a great guy to work with he is also a hell of a lot of fun to travel with. I guess I am going solo this trip after all.
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