2010 China Trip: Enroute

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My wife and I are making our 3rd trip to China to spend time with her family in Wuhan. As usual we spent the night at Toronto's Airport for our 6:30am flight to save some money as the tickets are very expensive for such a long flight (about $3200 total cost). We could have taken a direct flight to China but decided to take the best deal with Continental which involved making a connection to Newark in New York, Shanghai then to Wuhan.

This was our first flight to New York and thankfully the sky was clear allowing us to get a glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. It was a bit far away to see many details but it was still an impressive site to see the wall of skyscrapers along the horizon.

Our flight from Newark to Shanghai surprisingly took us back over Ontario and over Northern Canada then over the North Pole and then Russia. On the map it doesn't appear to be the most direct route but I suppose the pilot has a reason. It was a 14 hour grueling flight cooped up in the tiny seats with barely any room to move. At least the in-flight entertainment and food was great. We both felt like roadkill and could barely keep from passing out by the end of the flight though.

Upon arriving at Shanghai Pudong Airport we fought our way through the crowds to get our luggage at which time I realized I had to start preparing to get pushy as that's the way you have to be in China due to the number of people everywhere. We were originally planning to stay for part of a day in Shanghai to see a few sites but due to Continental's itinerary displaying flight times all in EST time instead of each airport's local time we had to cancel those plans and get ready for our connecting flight to Wuhan in 4 hours (which was originally supposed to be at the same time the NEXT day). Although this airport is huge it seems like everywhere we had to go was crowded while other areas were nearly empty so we had a little trouble finding a place to sit at the gate while waiting for the final flight.

When it was time to board the last flight in typical Chinese crowd fashion everyone scrambles to be the "first" to get on as if the plane would leave without them or there was not enough seats. I guess that's just the way it is when there is so many people everywhere.

I dipped in and out of consciousness many times on this flight and nearing the point of exhaustion but when we arrived we became wide awake again once my wife and I greeted her parents very eager and excited to see us. Then it was soon time for some quality shut-eye and to start another adventure in China the next day.

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