In Shanghai, Day 3

I’m in Shanghai for two weeks for training, so I’m staying in a guestroom at the Shanghai school. They call this area “SMIC world” because there’s an entire block dedicated to apartments and offices for SMIC employees. I can’t set up Internet here because I’m leaving for Wuhan in two weeks, so I’m using someone’s 11.0 Mbps unsecured b-wireless connection that keeps on kicking me off every so often. It’s better than not having Internet at all but it’s really annoying sending consecutive messages on MSN and having them returned undelivered. I’ve opted to use Skype during this time, since it saves the messages until you log back on. I don’t have any pictures for you because this Internet connection won’t let me upload a large amount of data without having a headache. You’ll have to wait until I get my Internet set up in Wuhan. I always forget to take pictures of my food. I guess it’s kind of weird to pull out a camera when you’re with new people and snap photos of your meal.

When I arrived at Pearson on Tuesday morning an Air Canada employee was still setting up the screens to display the correct flights for baggage checking. I was worried that my suitcases were too heavy when I was at home, so I took out a bunch of things from it but it turned out that I was within my limit—50 lb per bag. After checking in my baggage I still had a good two hours before I could board so I ended up having a bagel with strawberry jam and some water from the trusty Nalgene bottle. Don’t worry, I poured out the excess water before I went through customs. When noon finally came, I headed to gate 173. The lady in front of me in the customs line had to take off her heels and put it on the belt before she walked through the detector. Luckily, I was wearing my Pumas and I didn’t set off the detector. All signs point to goodness so far. Remember not to wear heels if you need to go through customs at the airport.

I headed down the long walkway to the gates and saw the weird structure in the International departures lounge that I’ve seen in my brother’s photos from his recent trip to Asia. I snapped a few shots and went on my merry way. When I got to my gate I sat down and waited for the cue to board the plane. I basically sat around and aimlessly took pictures from my seat.

Not too long after some random photo taking, it was time to board the plane. When I checked into my flight in the morning I had an option to change my seat. I checked the floor plan and there were supposed to be a person sitting in the aisle seat of my three-seat—I had the window seat. I waited and waited until it was time to take off and no one sat down so they must have changed their seating. I had a three-seat to myself with three blankets and three pillows.  Most of the people around me had their own three-seat, so it was a pretty empty flight.

After take-off the stewards and stewardesses started passing out the headphones. They weren’t ear buds but muffs that hang on your ear. I brought my own, so I didn’t have to use those uncomfortable things and it is one less pair of airplane headphones in the trash. I put my headphones to good use. I ended up watching 21, the grave-digger episode of Bones, the second episode of Gossip Girls and the 10th episode of Moonlight Resonance (on my laptop). Our flight arrived late so the flight was almost 15 hours.

I took a lot of pictures on the plane, mostly pictures of my window view but I also took some photos of my on-board meals. I had a seat right behind the left wing of the 777 which was a nice position to take window pictures. I had the lacto-ovo-vegetarian meals on the plane. They were yummy, except for some sort of cold pasta-ish salad that was very hard to chew, so I had to give up on that one. The desserts were delicious! I had carrot cake and something else that each came with one of the hot meals. Snack time included a chicken-flavoured Cup of Noodle, which I refused. The stewards that were passing it out didn’t know I had a special meal request.

I ended up having a three-seater all to myself on the plane, so when I was wasn’t watching some movie or show I was sleeping. I froze on the plane. I was wearing a tank top, T-shirt, pullover and one of the Community Organic Cotton jackets from Aritzia and I still froze. I should’ve brought my winter jacket in my carry-on and wore another pair of pants.

If you’re landing in PVG, don’t worry about coins for the luggage cart. It’s free, just pick one up when you get off the plane by the baggage claim area and you’ll be fine. I was worried that I didn’t have coins to get a luggage cart in PVG when I was at Pearson.

It’s Friday evening here, I had my first day of training today. There are about 40 new teachers at the Shanghai school, it was a long day of filling out applications to open up bank accounts, apply for insurance, talk about stock options for employees, and take photos for our badges. It was sunny all day during training and once we were done it started pouring. Thunder shower! I had this big plan to go to the Jianqiao Carrefour and Best Buy to buy some stuff, but having soaked Pumas makes it kind of uncomfortable to walk around.