Becky Goes to China

I checked out of the Pacific Hotel at 4:45am and the doorman ushered me into a waiting cab. There were two taxis waiting, actually, and there was a bit of a scuffle between the drivers about who should be getting the fare. Whatever. It was too early for me to care, and the doorman had already thrown my suitcase into the trunk of one, so that’s who won.

5am in Shanghai is probably the ideal time to go anywhere at all, since the roads are empty. It was the quietest I had seen China be in the whole of my two weeks there. For me, after the taxi accident in Beijing and the constant gridlock since arriving in Shanghai, it was a welcome opportunity to relax.

For my driver, however, it was an opportunity to reenact the Indy 500 as he flew down the highway to Pudong Airport at 160 kph.

There are no seat belts in the back seats of any cab in China.

At any rate, I was delivered safely at the terminal, got my boarding pass, checked my suitcase and settled in to wait for my 8:30am flight to Beijing, with boarding scheduled to begin at 8am.

At 8am, the flight crew posted a notice in Chinese and in English that the flight was delayed due to “aircraft rotation”. There were a lot of Chinese people yelling at the crew, while all the foreigners on the flight, including me, sat back and watched in a state of confusion, occasionally asking each other if anyone knew what was going on, if there were any updates and so on. An Egyptian woman next to me seemed unconcerned. In excellent English, she told me that she’s lived in China for four years, takes this same flight on a regular basis, and that it’s always, ALWAYS delayed – but that she’s never seen the Chinese passengers get so upset before, so there must be something the flight crew was not telling us. From someone else we heard that the flight crew was now saying that the captain hadn’t yet shown up. Who knows what the truth was…

We finally boarded at 9:30am, but then we we never went anywhere. The flight attendants began serving us water and breakfast while we were still on the ground. The Chinese passengers started screaming bloody murder again, and no explanations were given in English. I asked a German man across the aisle if he knew what was going on. He didn’t know, but a Chinese man in front of him who spoke English filled us in – the crew was now saying that the plane would not leave until 11am since that’s when air traffic control was able to fit us in. People were getting upset because many of them were going to miss their connecting flights.

We finally got underway, and something about the feel of the aircraft gave me the distinct impression that the pilot had his foot on the gas the whole way – a suspicion that was confirmed when our flight, which was scheduled to take two and a half hours, arrived in Beijing in just under two hours instead.

Luckily, I had given myself a very generous layover window and had plenty of time to retrieve my bag and check in for my flight to Seattle. I spent the last of my Chinese Yuan on a chicken foccaccia sandwich and a bottle of orange juice at Starbucks (American food!), picked up “The Life of Pi” at a bookstore in the terminal, and reveled in the peaceful Americanness of my purchases.

The flight to Seattle left an hour late as well, but had none of the blistering outrage of the Shanghai-Beijing flight. I turned down all of the food offered to me, much to the flight attendants’ dismay (if the smell of Chinese food made me sick, then Chinese airline food was sure to be even worse), but otherwise the rest of the trip home was completely without incident.

The kitties were relieved to see me and haven’t let me out of their sight. The tomato plant tripled in size during my absence, though the little broccoli sproutling died. I’ve already put all of my clothes through the laundry. My bed felt amazing. Jetlag woke me up at 4:30am, and now that it’s almost 9am I’m about ready for a nap, an event for which the balcony sounds just about perfect. It feels good to be home, where such things as peace and quiet actually exist.

In the morning, there was an optional trip to the Urban Planning Museum and Shanghai Art Museum. I skipped both because I had a mission: I needed to find a UPS outlet.

This errand requires a bit of explanation. Yes it would have been cheaper to just buy a second bag, some cheap Louis Vuitton knock off at one of the markets, but I had a rather special problem: the first leg of my trip back to Denver was actually a domestic flight from Shanghai back to Beijing, booked separately from my round trip fare, and thus my luggage was subject to a 20 kg weight limit. Especially after our visit with the Qataris the day before, I knew my bag would be overweight unless I shipped some things home.

But isn’t that weight limit per bag? I have no idea. The airline’s English pages were not helpful. All I knew for certain was that 20 kg number, and after the fiasco that was my flight to Beijing, the last thing I needed was more airport drama.

I found the address of a nearby outlet online and asked the front desk to write it for me in Chinese so I could show it to a taxi driver, hailed a cab and set off. I spotted it easily, paid my driver, hopped out and he sped away. But as I walked up, I quickly realized that the place was closed. Not closed as in “not open right now”, but CLOSED. Completely gutted with a note taped to the door – thankfully in both Chinese and English – with the addresses for alternative outlets.

Now, the thing about taking a cab in China is that the English name and address of any given location is almost completely useless. The first thing you do when you check into a hotel is get the hotel’s business card so you can show it to a driver. This way you can at least always get back to your hotel. But now I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and I was stuck somewhere in Shanghai with no idea how to tell a taxi where I needed to go. I flagged down a random guy on the street and somehow managed to communicate with hand signals that I needed him to please copy the address from the note into a small notebook I’d been carrying with me for note-taking during company visits. Armed with a fresh address, I hailed a fresh cab and was on my way once more.

Thankfully, the guys at UPS spoke English. There was a flurry of paperwork for Customs, a brief panic when it was revealed that they couldn’t take a Mastercard or Visa which was quickly resolved by the revelation of an entire row of ATMs just across the lobby, some minor confusion when for some reason they couldn’t ship my tea, and far too much cash later my overweight baggage problem was solved. A somewhat bizarre assortment of souvenirs should be arriving at my door by the end of the week.

Later that afternoon, Chen Ji led the group to the Old Shanghai City Market for more shopping. Just as we arrived, some of the girls spotted Jason Biggs crossing the square and about freaked out. (Really? You’re going to lose your shit over the guy from American Pie? I know I’m all jaded about celebrity from Disney, but still… the guy was famous eleven years ago for about two minutes. It’s worth a raised eyebrow at best.)

It had been raining all day and I was less than enthusiastic about shopping since I’d just unloaded all my excess bag weight that morning, so I just tagged along with Brian and Simon, who were on a mission. Brian wanted chopstick sets to give as gifts. Simon was determined to find a remote controlled Apache helicopter and some tea. We wound up in a tea shop tasting samples and I fell in love with a ginseng oolong. I picked that up, along with a “travel buddy” tea bottle that would have cost me $30 at a Whole Foods type store here in Colorado. The tea and bottle were both light enough that it wasn’t going to hurt my luggage weight at all.

Simon found his helicopter, and Brian challenged me to a game of mini billiards (precariously balanced on a wire rack nearby) while he tested it to make sure it worked. A couple of foreigners doing anything remotely interesting in China tends to draw a crowd, so after a few minutes we had spectators, but the game was quickly dropped when Simon was ready to go.

It was our last night in Shanghai and the end of our program. We had a group farewell dinner, yet another affair in which far too much of the same Chinese food glided past on a giant lazy susan. I picked at it as I had been with all Chinese food since I’d been sick. Now associated with illness, the smell is nauseating. I don’t think I’ll be getting over that for quite awhile.

The rest of the group went out to celebrate our last night in Shanghai, but I went to bed early. I had to be up at 4am to begin the long journey home.

(Photos added 5/30/10)

If you’re going to the World Expo in Shanghai, be prepared to stand in line. The line for the China Pavilion is 5-6 hours long. Our host at the Consulate yesterday, Keenton Chiang, told us we shouldn’t bother to try getting in since it was impossible to do without a reservation, which we did not have. The line for Saudi Arabia was 9 hours long. These are lines that make a 45 minute wait for the Jungle Cruise at DisneyWorld seem like a piece of cake. Upon arriving and viewing the chaos just to get in the gate, I turned to Kelly and asked her, “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” (She’s from Florida and is a fellow WDW alum. It’s an inside joke amongst all the cast members.)

That said, aside from the queues to get inside, we didn’t stand in a single line.

A couple days ago, one of our Qatari boys (we have two in our group) said, “Let me make a few phone calls and see if we can get VIP access to Qatar.” So he did, and sure enough when we arrived today, when we showed up at the Qatar Pavilion, we were treated like rock stars.

This is Ibrahim, pointing to a building in the mural. It’s his uncle’s hotel. That he owns. (It’s the blue building peeking out from behind the white pyramid-like at the far right.)

The pavilion manager came out to meet us, ushered us in past the line waiting to get in and into the VIP suite where we were served Qatari coffee (or tea, maybe, I just know I really didn’t like it) on soft sofas in a room overlooking the pavilion floor. Then he personally led us through the exhibit. When it came to the craft demonstrations, he let us inside the roped-off areas. The ladies were treated to henna tattooes, also behind the ropes.

A Qatari photographer followed us the entire way. We were told that the photos would be posted on the pavilion’s website and possibly published in the newspaper in Qatar. (I don’t see the photos posted as of this moment.) They took down all of our names and some info about our group, then lined us up for a group photo before sending us off with Qatari swag bags filled with mugs, t-shirts, umbrellas and random things.

The Qatari boys’ contact also told us that he could get us VIP access to 10-15 other pavilions, so what would we like to see? We ended up getting into several pavilions on account of the Qatari connection:

United Arab Emirates – skipped to the front of the line

Oman – skipped to the front, VIP lounge with Omani coffee and awesome date rolls, and another swag bag

China – were “accidentally” let into the reservations-only line (eat your heart out, Mr. Chiang!)

Saudi Arabia – skipped to the front, more paparazzi photos, and received apologies because if we’d come earlier in the day they would have let us into their VIP suite as well but were too busy by the time we arrived

We also visited Afghanistan, Bahrain and North Korea, none of which had lines. The North Korean pavilion was so incredibly lame it was actually kinda funny, especially with the slogan “Paradise for People” branded across the top of one wall.

All told, by Kelsey’s reckoning, it took us just 6 hours to see what people without VIP connections would have seen with 21 hours of waiting, and got into both of the “holy grail” pavilions. I have some new-found love for Qatar and our Qatari boys.

This is Kelsey.

Once the sun set, the group split up. Some wanted to explore the industry pavilions on the other side of the river while the rest of us were tired from being on our feet in the sun all day and wanted to just go home. I was part of the latter group that headed to the subway. The subway was only remarkable for one reason: the fistfight that broke out right in front of us. We don’t know what started it, but it got really interesting when one of the guys involved clocked a security guard right in the face. He ran off at the next stop, but jumped back on when he realized his girlfriend was still on the train. She was busy distracting the security guard so he could get away, but he came back for her. More fighting, and some super-official looking security with hand radios dragged the entire lot off the train at the next stop after that.

Alrighty…  I just noticed that it is midnight here, so I’m off to bed. I’ll try to get the photos up tomorrow to go with the stories.

(Photos added 5/30/10)

We arrived in Shanghai on the 25th, but I went to bed almost as soon as we checked in. The rest of the group went off to explore The Bund, which is walking distance from the hotel. I was disappointed I couldn’t join them, but I was too sick to tough it out.

The next day, however, the group wanted to go bar hopping. This did not appeal to me in the slightest, partly because I wasn’t yet feeling 100% and partly because it’s just not my thing anyway. So after our visits to the US. Consulate and a really freakin’ awesome tour of Baosteel, I decided to explore The Bund on my own. It was the perfect way to do it, actually, since I could move at my own pace, stop for photos without feeling hurried, and just take it all in.

First there was a large pedestrian mall with piles of high end shopping and enough neon to rival Las Vegas, then a row of older buildings which were mostly also high end shops. Finally, Nanjing Road ended at the river, and on the other side was a breathtaking view of the Shanghai skyline, all lit up, with river boats floating here and there. Simply gorgeous. If it weren’t so crowded, I could have stayed awhile just to watch the boats come and go, watch the colors change on the Pearl Tower. However, I’d had to push my way up to the rail, and then had to crouch to find a spot of rail I could use to steady my camera for a decent night photo.

Walking back, I stopped for take out at one of the two Pizza Huts I’d found along the way. It’s not even close to American quality, but it would do.

(Photos added 5/30/10)

Fair warning: I may or may not get photos into the rest of my posts before I leave China since the internet at the hotel is painfully slow and seems to break every time I try to upload a picture.

On our last day in Nanjing, we had more company visits. One of them in particular stood out. Amity Bible Printing Company is a non-profit dedicated to printing Bibles, mostly for Chinese Christians. Historically, China has been rather apathetic to religion, claiming a mostly agnostic Buddhism if they claim anything at all. Organized religion has begun to catch on with the younger generations, however, and 90% of Amity’s Bibles are printed in Chinese. They also do all of China’s minority languages, some Spanish, and even Braille. All of their paper is donated. And unlike the other factories we’ve visited which had strict no-photo policies, Amity let us freely take pictures throughout the entire tour.

In the evening, Chen Ji left us on our own for dinner as he went to visit his father, who lives in Nanjing. our bus driver, Mr. Gu, suggested a restaurant he knew which is on a boat on the Yangtze River. We all jumped at the chance to go, of course. It was a lovely setting, watching barges loaded with coal gliding down the river while the servers loaded our tables with dish after dish of whatever Mr. Gu ordered for us.

I hadn’t felt quite right since lunch, but this was where I really started to realize something was wrong. The boat was permanently docked and didn’t rock all that much, but it was enough to make me feel badly. At one point I was about to run outside to just sit on the dock where it was cooler and steadier. Back at the hotel, one of the guys requested copies of my night market photos. I think I barely made it through converting and copying them. I had to go to bed.

I woke up the next day feeling sick and beaten up, and I’ve already covered that.

I found TWO Pizza Huts on my walk to The Bund! I took pictures of both. A personal-sized cheese pizza has been acquired. It seems as though it is the best thing I have tasted for days and days.

I seem to have come down with some kind of virus. I started feeling not right after lunch on Sunday in Nanjing. Yesterday I woke up feeling as though someone had beaten me with rock all through the night. In that moment, I hated China. I wanted nothing more than to be asleep in my own comfy bed in Denver. I couldn’t eat anything and went through the day in such a daze that I didn’t take a single photo. If it hadn’t been a travel day, I would have just stayed at the hotel and no one would have blamed me, but we had to drive from Nanjing from Shanghai with company visits in Suzhou along the way. It was a rather miserable day. While the rest of the group walked down to The Bund last night, I was asleep at 7pm.

Today has been better, but still not fun. I ate breakfast, and even picked up a chocolate chip muffin when we found a Starbucks at the Ritz Carlton (we were there for a briefing at the U.S. Consulate) which was such a nice, welcome, American taste that I about cried, but nausea completely nixed lunch. I might have eaten something if some more American sick comfort foods were available, like chicken noodle soup. One of my favorite things to do when I’m sick but hungry is to just order a pizza. I am beyond tired of Chinese food. I can’t stand the sight or smell of it today. It seems as though everything I want that would make me feel better is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Most of the group went to get custom suits made. I would have done that as well, but I don’t have any more room in my luggage, my job’s dress code is blue jeans, and by the time any interviews roll around I don’t plan to be the same size I am now anyway, so I took a nap instead. They want to go bar hopping tonight, so I’m going to go for a stroll on The Bund on my own – and therefore at my own pace instead of whatever insane powerwalking speed the group moves at – and then maybe get a massage. I want to see what I can of Shanghai even if I’m a little sick since our time here is so short. If I find a Pizza Hut along the way, there may be some tears involved.

Nanjing. I’ve only been here for a day, but it’s already been a fairly wild experience, full of culture, natural beauty and general craziness.

We began the day at Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum, which is situated at the top of a beautiful mountain park. It was raining the whole time. There were shops selling umbrellas as we walked up to the mausoleum, and Chen Ji talked them down to 10 quai each for all of us – roughly $1.50. Despite the rain, the whole thing was lovely, possibly even prettier because of it, with Nanjing disappearing into the mist and colorful umbrellas dotting the stairs below.

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In the morning we toured GE Healthcare Beijing, which is a factory in the industrial zone which makes CT scanners, MRIs and x-ray machines. We weren’t allowed to take photos and production lines aren’t something I have experience with or ambitions for, so that’s pretty much all I have to say about it.

We had the afternoon to ourselves. Most of the group went to the Silk Market to go shopping, but a handful of us decided to skip shopping until Shanghai and went to see the Lama Temple instead.

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This is the Donghuamen Night Market, which has been grossing out tourists since 1984. You can buy everything from scorpions and centipedes to various species of hearts and testicles, all served kabob-style and fried in some kind of oil. The vendors who sell any kind of testicles are not at all shy about screaming, particularly at women, “PEEEEEEEENIIIIIS!!! YOU WANT SOME PENIS! PENIS PENIS PENIS!”

From left to right: hearts, testicles, silk worms, and I dunno.

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