It has certainly been an eventful first few weeks here in China, and I haven’t made the time to sit down and write about it yet because there is just so much to tell and I’ve been dreading have to relive it all. Getting to Guangzhou alone was a journey, so I’m going to dedicate this entire post to the story of how I got here (because it is plenty long…).
My travel itinerary was supposed to be fairly simple: a flight from O’hare to Shanghai, a 5 hour layover, and then a flight from Shanghai to Guangzhou. The reality was not as simple…
Everything went smoothly with my first flight (O’hare to Shanghai), which left on Wednesday, August 15 at 10:30am. It was a pretty long flight (about 14 hours), but I occupied myself with some in-flight movies and occasional napping. It was also a good thing I had requested a vegetarian meal ahead of time because the two options for the default meal were both meat-based. My two meals were pretty good, and we were also offered a snack about halfway through the flight. This is where I got a little jealous. The couple sitting next to me had both gotten the default meals/snacks, so their snack was a big box which contained granola bars, pretzels, a bag of Snap Pea crisps (my favorite!!), and a small container of salted caramel ice cream (!!!!). Talk about a luxury snack box. Then there was the vegetarian snack: a small apple and a bland, crunchy granola bar……. I was sitting there thinking “You have got to be kidding me” as I’m looking over at the tray table next to mine and this lady is having snacks and ice cream (which are all vegetarian by the way!), while I’m here with the most boring snack ever… So needless to say I was a little hungry after that snack, and was hoping that the people next to me wouldn’t want part of theirs and would offer it to me (they did not). Other than that though, my flight was fine! We even landed a little bit ahead of schedule at 1:30pm on Thursday, August 16.
The first thing I did after landing was try to connect to WiFi so I could let my family and friends know that I had landed safely, as well as get in touch with the UDA people in Guangzhou to keep them updated on my travels. There were two ways to connect to the WiFi at the Shanghai airport: 1) by having a text sent to you with an access code (but I needed WiFi to get texts so that was not an option for me) or 2) find a WiFi kiosk and enter your flight information to get a username and password. They had a helpful link to tell you where the WiFi kiosks were, but I couldn’t seem to find any of them. So I went ahead and went through customs and figured I would find it later.
Even though my stop in Shanghai was a layover, I still had to pick up all of my bags and re-check them for my second flight. So I had gotten all of my stuff and “exited” the airport to then go through security again for my next flight. All the while, I was looking for this dang WiFi kiosk, which said it would be right by where I exited (I eventually found it and it was much smaller than I was expecting, which explains why I walked right past it the first time).
I honestly had no clue where to go, so I was walking around the airport with all of my stuff (a full size suitcase, a carry-on suitcase, my backpack, and my pillow pet Mumble – I was really regretting not grabbing a luggage cart) trying to figure out how to get to my gate. I eventually asked an employee where to go and she directed me to the check-in desks for my airline, which was on a different floor and on the complete opposite side of the airport (I did a lot of walking this day, and with all of my stuff it was quite a workout – I was dripping sweat). I went to check-in at a kiosk, and there was an error. So I went up to the desk only to find out that my flight – and all other flights to Guangzhou for the rest of the day – had been cancelled. Trying to hold back stress tears, I asked where I could connect to WiFi and made my way ALL THE WAY BACK to where I had come from to connect to WiFi, take a seat, and have myself a little cry.
It was about 3pm at this point, meaning it was 2am at home and there was nothing that I wanted more than to vent to someone about what was going on. When I finally got WiFi I had a bunch of messages from UDA people who had been informed of my cancelled flight long before I had and were in the process of getting other travel plans arranged. I had been booked onto the next flight to Guangzhou the following morning (Friday, August 17) at 6:55am and would spend the night at a nearby hotel. It wasn’t ideal, especially considering that I’d land at 9:30am and teach my first class that afternoon at 4:15pm, but it would have to do. After spending another good chunk of time trying to find the bus stop, I finally made it onto a bus and to my hotel by 4:30pm. I hung out for a little bit, and went to bed at 6:30pm. I hadn’t slept much on the plane, and I was planning to take the 4:00am bus back to the airport so I was more than happy to knock out early.
I woke up around 3am and was finally able to talk to my mom and update her on everything that had happened. I checked out of my room, and got on the 4:00am bus, but while waiting for it to leave my mom suggested I double-check to make sure my flight hadn’t been cancelled… and sure enough, it had been. At that point, I had already checked out of my room and the bus had literally just left, so it looked like I was going to be spending some time at the airport.
When I got there, there wasn’t even anyone working at any of the airline desks because it was so early, so there was nothing I could do but wait around until someone could help me. Luckily, it was the middle of the day at home so I was talking with friends and family and I had a good book with me to keep myself occupied. I found myself a luggage cart, and had to do some major exploring to find an ATM, some breakfast, and an outlet to charge my phone halfway through the morning. (Side note: there are literally SIX outlets in the entirety of the area of the Shanghai airport before you go through security. People were lined up to use these outlets. The one that I finally found was also broken so I had to stand and hold the charger into the outlet for an hour 🙂 things were going so well at this point. Also, this was after having to leave the first charging station because a creepy Chinese man using the outlet next to mine had used Google Translate to ask if he could be my boyfriend… GOTTA GO BYE!)
It wasn’t until about 9am (after I’d already been hanging out at the airport for 5 HOURS!!) that the UDA people in Guangzhou finally woke up and were able to start figuring out what to do next. Ellen (who works in Sales at the gym and had been working with the travel agency for all of my travels) had at one point suggested taking a 7 hour train. The issue was that there was no guarantee that I could get a ticket, but she wanted me to go to the train station (an hour and a half away from the airport) and wait there to see if they could get me a ticket. If they couldn’t, then I would just come back to the airport… It didn’t sound like a good idea at all (Ellen is not the sharpest tool in the shed). There were a lot of unknowns (How would I get to the train station? What if there wasn’t WiFi there and we lost our only source of communication? What if there were no English signs?), so I wasn’t at all fond of this idea, and thankfully neither was Clint (one of the cheer instructors and my roommates) who said a big fat NO to that option. I would not be going anywhere until I had a ticket in my hand and a clear plan of what was going on.
Luckily, shortly after that I had been able to get booked on a 7pm flight to Guangzhou that night. I left my charging station, wheeled all of my stuff over to the check-in desk, checked my bags, and got my boarding pass. However, when I got my boarding pass it was for a flight to Guangzhou at 3:50pm, not 7pm… I guess I had been upgraded or something? Either way I was okay with it!
I went through security and easily found my gate. I took a seat, got out my book, and was ready to kill the next 4 hours before my flight. It was at this point that I realized my 3:50pm flight had originally been a 12:30pm flight. It was only at 3:50pm now because it had been delayed. Things already weren’t looking good. Although, because a bunch of people had been waiting they passed out several free meals so that was nice.
We got an update maybe 2 hours before our departure time saying that our flight had been delayed and that they would update us on a new departure time soon (that literally never happened but okay). There was a big group of Australian travelers who had been going up to the desk trying to get more information, so I had been eavesdropping on their conversations a little bit. Apparently, our flight was coming from Nagoya, Japan and at around 5pm it hadn’t even left Japan yet. To make a long story short… I spent 9 hours at this gate reading my book, listening to music, eating free food, and waiting endlessly to get on this freaking flight.
We finally ended up boarding around 9pm and departed at 9:40pm. The craziest part was that I had been talking with my mom throughout all of this (obviously) and she had gone to bed shortly after I got to my gate around noon (11pm Chicago time), and when she had woken up the next morning I WAS STILL WAITING AT MY GATE. She had even said before going to bed “hopefully next time we talk you’ll be safely in Guangzhou!” If only it had been that easy… After spending 17 hours at the Shanghai airport, I was more than ready to get to Guangzhou.
I finally landed in Guangzhou around midnight, got picked up by a driver, and taken to my apartment where I met Clint and LiYen who are my roommates here. They are married and both teach cheer at the gym. Clint is from Missouri and LiYen is from Malaysia. I got in around 2am and got a quick tour of the apartment and run-down of the schedule for the following day. We went to bed for a little bit and woke up for a full day of teaching 9:00am-6:30pm… IT WAS A LONG WEEKEND.
And THAT is the story of how it took me over 48 hours to get from Chicago to Guangzhou.
I’ll write another post soon talking about my apartment, Guangzhou, and my job 🙂
Eva Around the World 