The worst way to get to Shanghai

The flight from San Francisco to Shanghai normally takes right around 12 hours. For me, it took from Tuesday night to Friday afternoon.

Gretchen and I spent Tuesday, my last day in San Francisco, visiting the de Young museum, which has a really broad collection of artwork from 18th century formal landscape painting to contemporary multimedia pieces, housed in a beautiful building designed by the Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron. I was surprised to see sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy (the guy from the fantastic documentary Rivers & Tides) as well as Claes Oldenburg, known for his enormous sculptures of objects from everyday life (the one outside the de Young Museum was a huge safety pin).

With a few hours to kill after the museum, I decided to fulfill one of my totally ridiculous dreams of visiting San Francisco: a trip to Dave Eggers' Pirate Supply Store, which is also a children's writing workshop. Let me warn you in advance: asking a rational 70-year-old family member if they want to go to a pirate store is kind of an awkward experience ("umm... it's where they sell, like, eye patches and stuff"). Luckily, Gretchen was along for the ride, so we went. The inside of the store is like a tiny version of the pirate ship in the last part of The Goonies, full of glass eyes, pirate flags, gold coins, jewels, and more. For the adult visitor, each item was accompanied by a hilarious description of its suggested use. A few photos:





Gretchen and I said goodbye to our mateys and got on the Bart to SFO. My heart started beating faster and faster as we approached the airport, not out of nervousness to leave the United States for a year, but because I was afraid they weren't going to let me on the flight. With a one-way ticket to Shanghai, I am techinically required to show an ongoing ticket out of China as proof of plans to leave the country. Without specific plans, I am not legally allowed to get on the plane. According to everything that I have read, it is only a problem if the person who checks you in happens to be an asshole. I got in line at the Air Canada booth and was called forward by a young guy. Holy crap, I thought, I hope this guy isn't a jerk. He silently looked over my trip plans as I nvervously waited to hear my fate. "You're going to Shanghai... through.... Toronto?! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You know that's just north of New York, right!?" He called over his behind-the-counter buddies and they giggled at my stupid route. Luckily, they were distracted enough to print out my boarding passes without checking for my ticket out of China. Phew.

My flight to Toronto left more than three hours late after a big mechanical problem, which caused us to switch planes at about 1:00 am. We made it to Toronto more than an hour after my ongoing flight to Shanghai had already left. Nobody seemed sure what I should do about my missed flight: I was sent to about 20 different booths, counters, windows, rooms, and even a different terminal before I was able to get answers. With only one flight from Toronto to Shanghai per day, it was clear that I was temporarily stuck in Ontario. The apologetic Air Canada people and gave me a flight the next day, a free hotel room at the Best Western (classy!) and $37 worth of meal vouchers, which was fine with me. There's very little I enjoy more than free stuff.

I spent my day at the Best Western (too far from downtown Toronto to spend any time in the city) watching Canadian TV and eating at the hotel restaurant which surprisingly had an outstanding Indian buffet. There are worse ways to kill a day than watching Much Music and eating spicy Indian food, I tell you that much. I finally boarded my flight, 26 hours after I thought I would.

On a 14-hour flight, you hope that you're not sitting next to someone horrible. Much to my dismay, I was sitting next to the most irritating human being on the planet: a squirrely 50-something Chinese man. Everyone knows there's an unspoken rule that the armrest is a neutral zone where you carefully spend your time, making sure you give the other person their fair share of time there as well. This guy spent much of the flight with his arm a full six inches over the armrest, despite my aggressively nudging him out of my space every few minutes. On top of that, he kept spitting into his barf bag, yawning incessantly, and tapping me on the shoulder to ask me ridiculous questions like, "Do you like this kind of plane?" and "Do you like rice?" After a few hours (and a few cocktails), I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided to just try to forget about it. Just as I was starting to relax, he grabbed my purchased copy of Newsweek out of my seat pocket, read an article, and placed it on his lap like a napkin while we ate our sweet and sour pork for lunch. Oh... my... god.... I pushed the flight attendant button and ordered my fifth gin and tonic.

While he was sleeping, I took a picture of the neutral zone violation. For those keeping score at home, he also has a big spot of drool on his shirt.



I finally made it to Shanghai on Friday night, easily glided through customs and was greeted by my brother Bill, who was waiting for me along with a massive amount of Chinese people. He was easy to spot, because he's two feet taller than everyone else in the country. We boarded the Maglev, the first of its kind in history, and currently the world's fastest train. Unfortunately, since it was raining, the the Maglev was only able to hit 186 miles per hour, instead of its break-neck top speed of 267. Either way, it rocketed us from the far-away Pu Dong Airport to the city in just a few minutes. Here's some video of us flying by cars on the highway:



We met Vivien in People's Square, and ate a great dinner of spicy stir fry before taking the hour-long bus to where Bill and Vivien live, in a northern suburb called Jiading. Calling it a suburb is a little bit misleading, because it is still full of the high-rises and busy streets of Shanghai, just toned-down a bit.

I've spent my first few days in Shanghai wandering around, seeing what Bill and Vivien like to do for fun. We've eaten some great meals so far, including yesterday's lunch at Taco Bell Grande, a bizarre take on the Taco Bell franchise where teenage Chinese employees awkwardly wearing sombreros serve surprisingly delicious Tex-Mex food and try their best to speak a few words in Spanish. It was classic. On the more traditional side of things, Bill and Vivien took me to a style of restaurant called Hot Pot, where you order an array of food (meat, potatoes, vegetables, tofu, etc.) and cook it in one of two sauces in a pot in the center of the table.



We've gone to futuristic ultra-luxury shopping malls, wandered through the historic old town in Jiading, visited the former British colonial center in Shanghai called The Bund, walked down the city's craziest pedestrian street Nanjing Road, and more. One of the most amazing things about China so far is the insane amount of people that are around at all times. I've never seen anyting quite like it. Here is some evidence, shot in Bill and Vivien's local supermarket, which apparently "wasn't very crowded" the day that we visited:



I'm having a great time in China so far. I'm looking forward to exploring Shanghai a bit more with Bill & Vivien, then starting the solo part of my trip in a little more than a week as I make my way south toward Hong Kong. Thanks for reading!

-Ryan!


Photos updated: San Francisco, Shanghai. (Some of these are a little bit grainy because I had my camera on the wrong setting for a few days. I've got the problem figured out now.)