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Shanghai: At Night, in the Rain!

When I booked tickets for my sister and myself about 2 weeks ago, I was quite constrained by price and availability, as I’m sure you can imagine. The only flight I could find under $1700  (a coach ticket is typically $800-$1200) was at a slightly inconvenient time, with slightly inconvenient seating.

It all seems fine when you order the ticket, until you actually have to DO what you’ve signed up for. And keep in mind, when you’re bargain-hunting for international plane flights at the last minute, you’ve looked at about 10,000 different lay-overs, connections, fees, seating assignments… and at the moment you click “confirm”, you’re so confused and exhausted you could have a 1o hour, overnight layover in Buenos Aires and not even notice.

So, yesterday morning, our flight from Atlanta to Newark left at 6:45am, which meant we had to leave the house at 4:45. My sister, Shannon, and I elected to stay up the entire night-not because we wanted to sleep on the plane but because we didn’t start packing until 11pm the night before.

So, we make it to Newark just fine. I slept the entire way, which is great.

We have a 2 hour layover in Newark, and I’m on the phone handling last-minute business items, and making sure my phone is set for international use, that my Credit Card companies know I’ll be out of town… the normal, layover procedure.

Our Meal at my Favorite Restaurant: Mei Long Zhen!

Then it happens. My phone starts beeping. Which means it is low on batteries.

I scan the entire gate area, and find a plug next to an unused desk. The next thing I know I’m on the plane, helping fellow passengers put up their luggage, settling into my middle seat, and I hear “The doors to the plane have now been closed, please discontinue use of your cell phones…”

OH NO. My cell phone is still plugged into the wall.

I hop out of my seat, run to a flight attendant and tell her what I’ve done. I may have over-exaggerated the necessity of the phone for my survival in China… but desperate times call for desperate measures; and before I know it, there are 2 other flight attendants and one very attractive pilot ready to open the door, radio Control, and let me run in to grab my phone.

But Control makes a call to the gate, and my phone is no longer there. So I have to go back to my middle seat, in the middle row. Shannon and I had tried unsuccessfully to guilt all our surrounding, aisle and window seat passengers into switching with one of us, but when it comes to 15 hours in a small space-chivalry is dead. Understandably.

One poor guy got roped into switching his emergency exit, aisle seat for a middle seat behind me because he had the seat next to 2 parents who strategically placed their child in the middle seat ticket 10 rows back. The man had no choice. He had to let the baby have his seat. Talk about devastation.

I've never seen this before! The Chinese LOCK UP their umbrellas!

The flight is for some reason incredibly comfortable and I’m able to sleep a good 8 of the 15 hours. Shannon mentioned (because she did not sleep a wink the entire flight) that I was dead asleep, probably snoring, and my head was flopping from the shoulder of the girl on my right to the arm of the older man on the left. All I can say is: maybe they’ll think twice next time about not switching seats. I should mention that for the 7 hours I was awake Shannon and I were talking over the people in between us and passing food back and forth. 

At some point in the flight I wake up, and meet a man in line for the bathroom and tell him my phone predicament. He proceeds to convince me that my entire identity is somehow on that phone-bank accounts, credit card information, social security number… he says I can consider my identity stolen; my accounts at best will be frozen, and that means I’ll have no money to get out of the airport, much less buy pearls.

Upon arrival in China, Shannon and I have no information to offer as to our return flight, the address of our hotel, or any of the questions they ask on the arrival card.

We hop into a cab that has newspapers suspiciously covering the back seat, and about 5 minutes into the 45 minute ride realize that it’s sopping wet underneath the newspaper. I ask the cab driver why it’s so wet, and he says he left his windows down during a recent downpour.

So… wet, cold and pretty disoriented, Shannon and I fall out of the cab at the hotel.

But my familiar bellhop greets us with a smile, the check-in counter remembers my reservation, and we are lead to our fabulous room with bottled water and chocolates on the pillow. I check Shannon’s voicemail and my phone is safe and sound in security at Newark. 

We unpack, rest a few minutes, and head to my very favorite restaurant in all of China, MeiLong Zhen, for a feast of braised eggplant, fried noodles, tofu, bean curd pancakes, and Tsing Tao.

Shannon at MeiLong Zhen Restaurant

Delicious Beancued Pancakes

We head back to the hotel, showered… and I am now waking up at 5am in my robe, with my hair in a towel- I must have fallen asleep walking from the shower to my bed.

I can’t wait to receive our edition of Shanghai Daily, sit at breakfast and drink green tea, and then head out to start designing dolma’s new collection!

Zai jian, for now!

Ashley