July 6th, 2011. San Francisco Airport
18 hours into the trip and I am exhausted. I napped from 1130 until 2 last night at Erin’s house, napped a tiny bit on the two hour flight to San Francisco, and slept maybe an hour in the airport while on my long layover. The dork ahead of me on the flight from Vancouver put her seat fully back making it so I had to put my seat back to be able to breath. I hate people who do that! I always only recline mine a little because I hate it so much!
Air Canada behaved themselves and didn’t lose any of the 12 people on my flight from PG’s luggage. I was very impressed with their behavior! We even arrived on time. John’s Mom and sister came to the airport to say goodbye to me. It was so sweet of them! Besides my ride, no one has ever seen me off at the airport before! Erin met me at the airport and as soon as we got back to her place I said goodnight. 2 am really isn’t a good time to wake up!
I don’t know why airports insist you are there 3 hours early for an international flight. Erin and I arrived at the airport at about 315 for my 6 am flight. No United representatives were on hand. They arrived at about 330. We get through them, and the baggage people aren’t at work yet. So, we all stand in another line to be able to put our bags on the conveyor belt. Finally a man shows up for work and we move our baggage away. Security was there and I went through fast and problem free. Next up, customs where again, no one is at work yet. This line ended up super long before we started moving. I was glad to be near the front of all of them. Now that we are through security and everything, it’s time to start looking for food before the plane departs. Starbucks is the only place open as we start coming through. Pretty much everyone who was on time for San Francisco ended up at Starbucks because we were hungry and needing our caffeine. Other places were in the process of opening. That’s the worst thing about 6 am flights. It’s almost impossible to get food! And with it being a two hour flight, United did a snack bar where you pay for snacks, but they did give me a full can of apple juice so that was nice.
So far, things are pretty uneventful. I was going to post this for you so you know I am still alive, but it seems that my computer does not want to connect to the Free Wi-Fi at the airport. I still have 2 hours to go before my flight, and my e-reader didn’t charge fully – guess when my laptop shuts off it can’t charge (obviously) so it doesn’t have much life left on it either….. Failure! Guess I will be watching TV and sleeping for the next 16 hour flight! I can see a plug in, I could charge it, but we packed the cord in a random bag that is lost in this massive airport not where near me!
The custom person I had in Vancouver asked where I was going, and fearing that “to China” would sound like as much of a joke to him as it does to me (I think it’s all those I’m digging to China comments we get as kids), I answered with Shanghai. It was 5 am and he didn’t look amused. He wanted to know all about what I was doing in China – is that curiosity or his right to know? I never know with customs, and just answer them! Better to give away information than to be stopped for being difficult I guess!
So, until I get to Shanghai, so long!
July 7, 2011 Shanghai
Here I am! Shanghai at long last! I swear the flight took extra-long, but it appears we arrived a couple of minutes early. Maybe it just seemed like forever because the on-flight entertainment was all in Chinese with Chinese subtitles (although the man next to me who was Indian appeared to be listening to them… I couldn’t find the channel!). I napped a bunch but time didn’t seem to be napping away! I picked up a cold somewhere along the way today, so I have a sore throat and am a little stuffy, but mostly just feel like I might be sick. How lame is that! I read until my e-reader told me it couldn’t read anymore – I might have to have a quick gander to see if I can find my chargers, and the proper plug ins! Tomorrow though, I am going to bed really early for the Chinese and really late for me! Right now, it’s approaching 5 am in Canada and I have been on the go for 27 hours even though I napped a lot! This flight came with two full meals and a snack which was really nice. My kind neighbor even took a snack for me when I slept through snack time! It was nice to wake up to a banana and a muffin waiting for me! I also miscalculated when we should be in (they said 10 hours and to me, that meant 10 pm….. and I think it was more like 10 hours 59 minutes lol). Sadly, it’s really cloudy out today and I didn’t get to see much on the way into Shanghai from the air.
I should have peed before I left the plane! I have always just snuck into a bathroom in the terminal to clean up a little and relieve myself before customs, but I had some trouble finding toilets that weren’t miles out of the way. Immigration was a really long line, but it went very smoothly. All three of my bags came in a row again. I lost a rainbow strap in the last 24 hours, but it was on the very noticeable suitcase, so that was fine. I put my big backpack into a bag in Vancouver and I will be throwing the bag out before I try to move the silly thing again since it is just falling out in numerous places! There was no one in customs; we all just walked right on through. Then came the line of people collecting other people. I looked for my name even though I wasn’t expecting to see it. I came out of the line and was wondering where I might find a payphone (and if there would be English instructions on the payphone when I did find it) and a man asked if he could help me. I said I was supposed to call my hotel when I got here for a ride. He took my papers from me and said come to my booth. I followed (wondering how much this would cost me – in Ghana, I would be paying for him to talk to me let alone help me!) and he dialed and gave me the phone. The girl spoke to me in English (maybe calling at 3 am wasn’t my best idea last week) and told me where to go to meet the driver. He was there in about half an hour.
My first impressions of Shanghai are that it is a beautiful city. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t expecting construction like at home, but there it is. I pictured far more traffic (maybe it’s because it was 7 pm on a Thursday?) like in Accra, but we just moseyed our way here. The driving reminds me of Accra though! There was another girl coming to the hotel tonight too (she has been here a while but is Canadian) and I let her have the front seat because I was smaller than her for the luggage filled backseat. She was like “oh sure, make me watch my death come” and I laughed. Maybe it was that there is less traffic tonight, but death was more certain in Accra! I should be pretty adjusted to the time zone tomorrow and I plan to go for a walk, or on a tour or something the hotel offers. I didn’t talk to them about it tonight though, I just wanted to rest!
I am going to go have a cold shower and crawl into my king sized bed and sleep the night away! I love you Canada (and England…) and hope life is going well so far without me! Congratulations, you have survived day one! :P Love you and hope to hear from you all soon!
