China, Day 3: December 2014
Today the only thing on the agenda was the trip to Shanghai. After breakfast we headed to the airport. Arthur made sure that we got checked in and left us outside of security. Security was interesting. Jeff was told by one of the guys that he looks like Jason Kidd (he’s heard that before, but was surprised to hear it in China). The security protocols are different than in the US, which we knew, and we thought we had everything covered but apparently the external battery pack Jeff has to recharge his iPhone was a no-no. Still, if that’s the only thing that got confiscated, we didn’t do too bad.
We were there early so we were able to walk around a bit; the terminal for domestic flights is much different than the terminal for international flights. We saw some interesting snacks available for purchase (giant bag of duck, anyone?), but settled for some Pringles. They have coolers of bottled water and hand trolleys all throughout the terminal. The flight was pretty uneventful, but it was interesting to note the differences between domestic flights in the US and China. The planes here are huge (almost 80 rows) and pretty full. The in-flight amenities are top-notch — personal video screens at every seat with on-demand movies and video games (some kids next to us were playing Pac Man); plus, lunch service and at least 4 opportunities to get a drink, on a ~2 hour flight, no less!
The drive to the hotel was a little more exciting. Shanghai is HUGE!!!!! We know we said that about Beijing, but Shanghai is mammoth compared to Beijing and the traffic, oh the traffic. It took us about an hour to get from the airport to our hotel with only one almost car accident on the way. The driving here is so terrifying it is almost comical. The smog is also much worse here — very obvious flying in, and even just walking out of the airport we could feel our throats start to get itchy.
Once we settled in to our hotel, we went out to the pedestrian street outside our hotel. It was a giant see of people and stores. We found it more than a little overwhelming, so we decided to head back to the hotel and unpack a little. When we went out in search of dinner we ended up at a Turkish restaurant across the street, which was decent. We bought some bottled water at a convenience store and came back to the room to get everything ready for the morning. We are meeting our guide at 9 am tomorrow morning and then it is gotcha time!
We didn’t do a whole lot today, so we will leave you with some impressions about Shanghai:
- EVERYONE smokes (as if the air isn’t bad enough with smog). Our 25+ floor hotel only has 6 or 7 non-smoking floors, and when we requested a room on one, they looked at us like we were crazy.
- Shanghai feels much less international than Beijing. It’s strange, because from what we’ve seen, there seem to be a lot more US / English shops here than Beijing, but it seems like English itself was more common in Beijing.
- The size of the city is much greater than we ever imagined. In every direction you see skyscrapers and giant apartment buildings, and then you drive for 30 minutes, and you still see more of them. In other cities like New York, there is some sort of “break†(like a river), or in LA, the tallest buildings are only a few stories tall. Here, the streets are wide, crowded, and the buildings just go on and on and on.
- You can buy roasted corn on the cob at the convenience store, which is awesome and something they totally need to have in the US.
There’s only a few pictures from today (China: Day 3 SmugMug gallery)– mostly this morning before we left Beijing, and a few of the atrium in our hotel in Shanghai (will get plenty more of Shanghai over the next few days, of course).
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