The best laid plans of mice and men - arrival in Shanghai

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May 21, 2009 (Thursday ) - Our daughter Tamara drove down from Denver last evening, to be able to drive us to Denver International Airport today to catch the 3 PM flight to Chicago O’Hare. We decided to fly the day before our flight to Shanghai and spend the night near O’Hare, rather than getting up at 2 AM to drive to DIA to catch a 6 AM flight to Chicago, then the 14 flight to Shanghai. Upon arrival and check in at DIA, we went through TSA’s screening, where my Mom was routinely asked for her drivers license or ID. She rummaged through her bag and produced a Florida drivers license which had expired over a decade earlier. I asked her where she put her new Colorado ID. He replied that she had left it at home. I asked why; whereupon she replied that the Florida ID made her look younger! I knew then that traveling with my 87 year old mother was going to be an interesting, though perhaps illogical experience. The flight itself was uneventful. We met up with Will, my son, at our airport hotel. He flew in earlier from Roanoke, where he had just finished his Spring semester at college. He had slept most of the day. His normal sleeping pattern of staying up most of the night and sleeping until noon would help overcome jet lag, as night was day and day was night in Asia. About 10 PM as we were getting ready for bed, we received a call from Untied Airlines informing Will that his flight to Shanghia was cancelled (I had just enough frequent flyer miles for my Mom and myself, so had used my United frequent flyer miles for his flight…both flights departing O’Hare and arriving in Shanghai within 10 minutes of each other). I called Untied to reschedule his flight to Shanghai, via Hong Kong, with the Hong Kong = Shanghai flight on Shanghai Airlines arriving at midnight vs our 2 PM arrival. I knew this was going to be a long day for me, but what else could we do? I didn’t ealize how long the day was actually going to turn out!!!

22 May (Friday) - We caught the shuttle to O’Hare early enough to drop Will off at United ticketing (he needed an actual ticket for the Shaghai Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai…not an eticket), and to check into my Mom’s and my flight to Shanghai. The Untied ticketing line took forever, and we discovered that our reservation on Shanghai Airlines was for May 22…the agent didn’t take into account that his 22 May flight to Hong Kong didn’t arrive until 23 May due to the International Dateline. Anyway, that mistake was corrected and he got his tickets for an earlier flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai, this one landing at 10 PM instead of midnight. I proceeded back to American, and boarded the 12:20 PM flight to Shanghai, calling Will just before takeoff to make sure everything was still on time for his 12:20 flight to Hong Kong.

23 May (Saturday) - The fourteen hour flight to Shanghai was loooong, and I saw about every movie that was available on the seatback system. Interestingly, one would think that a flight from Chicago to Shanghai would involve flying across mostly water, that being the Pacific Ocean. However, translating the Mercator map to the actual globe resulted in our flight heading almost due north over Canada, then over the Arctic Ocean and finally down across Siberian Russia and Manchuria, diverting around North Korean and down the length of China to Shanghai…mostly over land, and never across the Pacific. When we landed we were instructed to remain in our seats until health officials could come aboard to detect whether we had the swine flu. Soon a team wearing HASMAT suits and masks boarded and used a laser scanning device on each of the passengers foreheads to read whether they had a temperature. We also had to fill out forms indicating whether we had any flu symptoms. Upon clearing customs and immigration, my Mom was pulled aside by the health officials for a third degree health assessment. Apparently on her form she had checked the box for one of the flu symptoms (she had thrown up the previous evening due to nervousness). I asked her why she had done such a thing as this symptom, by itself had nothing to do with the flu. She said she was just being honest. We were the last to clear customs and immigration. We were met by Mark, who also attended Dalat High School. He would be our long suffering host for our time in Shanghai. He drove us to the hotel and after checking in, and leaving my Mom at her room to rest and wait for my sister Carol who was arriving on a 4 PM flight from Bangkok, Mark and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Later that evening we returned to Pudong Airport to pick up Will at 10 PM. By 11 PM we realized that Will was not coming on the 10 PM flight, and learned that the 10 PM flight was canceled and combined with the original midnight flight. By 1 AM we realized that Will was not on that flight either. I bought an international phone card and called United Airlines reservations to find out what had happened. It turns out that shortly after we departed O’Hare, they announced that his flight had been delayed 7 hours, thus missing all connections to Shanghai that evening. When he arrived in Hong Kong, the airport was basically empty. He went to the airport hotel, which called a United agent, who provided a coupon for a free night stay, and was booked on a flight the following morning. United told me that he was booked on an 8 AM Shanghai Airlines flight arriving in Shanghai at 11 AM. I then called my wife to tell her what had happened. She told me that Will had called her collect to inform her that he was catching a 8 AM Dragon Air flight arriving in Shanghai also at 11 AM. Mark dropped me off at the hotel at 3 AM.

24 May - Mark picked us up and we had breakfast before heading out to Pudong Airport. We decided to wait for the Shanghai Airlines flight, which the borad indicated had already landed at 10:30 AM…but no Will again by 11:30. So while Mom and Carol waited in terminal 1, Mark and I went to terminal 2 to see if he came on Dragon Air…which he had!!!! We collected Mom and Carol and headed to Yu Yuang Gardens for lunch and sightseeing. The next blog will cover the rest of our time in Shanghai. Right now it is the morning of 25 May, and we are getting ready to catch a taxi to Hongxiao Airport for a 11:45 AM flight to Lanzhou in western China….and writing this blog and reading our email.

Reading our emails, we just found out that Will was accepted at John Cabot University in Rome for the Fall semester. He will be majoring in International Relations and finish his last two years there. Congratulations Will!!

I also found out from Mark that this is the first year where the Chinese government had decided to break up the week long May day holiday into two three day holidy with the Dragon festival being this week. I hadn't booked the train from Lanzhou to Xian yet, so di this just now at an agent across the street. There were no seats left of the day trains this Wednesday, 27 May, but I was able to by four tickets for the night train leaving Lanzhou at 11: 07 PM on 26 May and arriving in Xian at 8:30 AM on 27 May. Now if I can only rent a car for Minxian all day on 26 May.

Our pictures will be posted tomorrow...not enough time now...have to cathc the taxi to the airport.

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