9/3/16: Shanghaied!

  9/3/16

a.     Last entry concluded with me in the middle of the Northern Pacific, shrouded in darkness. The latter half of that journey paralleled the first. I watched some of The Red Lantern, which I had failed to clip the subtitles for, but which was super beautiful. Leafed through the Delta movie catalog and watched Deadpool, which was not what I was expecting, but was very funny. Did a few more flashcards, but was getting too tired to keep it up for long. Finally, as we were descending, I found The Revenant and picked up watching where I left off.

b.     Turned off as we descended into Shanghai (NOTE! The vowel in Shang is properly pronounced like the vowel in “tongs”, those things you pick up meat with). Think “shonghai”. The view from the window was majesterial. The sun was setting over banks of fog and swirling crowd; swampy green ground spilled off into whiteness. Several things were immediately apparent: networks of canals (apparently for irrigation, lots of farmland near the airport) criscrossed the ground. There were also lots of white, cylindrical domed things that I later identified as greenhouses.

c.     Landed at the airport, followed the mass of fellow passengers to Immigration, where I presented my visa. And just like that, I was in Shanghai! Filled my water bottle at a strange looking unit that only dispensed warm water (a honest signal, I believe, of it being boiled). Toyed with the idea of getting on the subway, but I was too tired. Instead, I found an airport restaurant, snapped a picture of one of the offerings, and showed my phone to the cashier. The communication goes through, if somewhat gracelessly. Embarrassingly, I’m surprised and somewhat disappointed that my ~15 words of Chinese are completely worthless for actual interaction. Come on, Spence, humility! :D

d.     Sat eating my delicious food--much like Mee Sum in the U district--and desperately trying to get onto the wifi so I could send home a communique. The airport wifi required you to receive a SMS, which my phone refused to do even when I tried to swallow the $0.50 fee and turn on cellular. Another embarrassing moment when I tried to ask the restaurant employee to log me on to the restaurant wifi via the all-chinese captive login screen, only to realize it was the wrong restaurant’s wifi.

e.     Pinned all my hopes on the hotel wifi, and made my way to the taxi operation area, where I joined a long queue. At the front of the queue there were 5 temp parking slots that taxis continually entered and exited; when I made my way to the front, an airport official directed me to a particular incoming taxi. I showed my paper with the hotel address and we were off!

f.      Although the driver was messaging his friends on WeChat the whole drive, I arrived at my hotel in one piece. The fellow dropped me off right on the roadside; on the driver’s side, cars were whizzing past haphazardly. I looked over at the hotel, with its half-failing neon sign, and wondered if I had made a mistake booking a room at $14.

g.     Another awkward attempt to communicate with the receptionist. She made use of Baidu Translate to ask me things. Finally managed to book a shuttle to the airport at 5:20 the next morning, pay the 10 yuan ($1.50) required. Think I managed to dodge a question about a 100 yuan deposit, which the Hotels.com registration didn’t mention, and which I think may have been an attempt to bait and switch me and double the actual cost of my hotel booking :D

h.     Went up to my room on the third floor; immediately my fears abated. The room, though small, was ideal, and I had a personal bathroom with a spacious shower.

i.       I get on the wifi, after some finagling, and I’ve had a message from Xin. The contents: my flight for tomorrow leaves from Hongqiao airport, not Pudong airport—the one I have a shuttle back to at 5:20 toomorrow morning.

j.       I break out in a cold sweat (not really since I’m already drenched in the heat and humidity). Could this be a mistake?! I rummage through my bags and retrieve my ticket, noting the port of departure with chagrin. I must have changed times on the Spring Airline website, and not noted that the departure airport also changed.

k.     My first thought is to change the ticket—I’m pretty sure I’ve purchased a changeable one. So I quickly hit up the Spring Airline website—not blocked obviously because it is a Chinese airline—and find that, indeed, I can change the ticket for $10. It means giving up 6 hours in Chongqing with Xin though.

l.       So I embark on a losing struggle with patchy wifi and with Baidu, China’s Google-equivalent, to first find Hongqiao airport, and then determine if there is any way in Hades I might reach the place by 5am tomorrow morning. (At this point, with the exception of an hour’s nap, I’ve been awake for 22 hours.)

m.    I come to the conclusion I’d be insane to try, after a surprising amount of deliberation. I can’t communicate, I don’t know any of the transportation systems, and I’d have to leave at 4 in the morning, when a) I’d be exhausted and b) none of the transit runs regularly. Xin, in a prolonged WeChat discourse,

n.     I switch the flight, go down to the front desk and change the shuttle time (less words and more pointing works better) take a refreshing shower, stretch, and hit the hay.