- New York, USA (JFK) - Tokyo, Japan (Narita)
- 1 Hour Driving
- 2.5 Hours Waiting
- 14 Hours Flying
- Tokyo, Japan (Narita) - Shanghai, China (Pudong)
- 1.5 Hours Waiting
- 3 Hours Flying
- Shanghai, China (Pudong) - Shanghai (Royalton Hotel)
- 1 Hour Driving
I am now 12 hours ahead. So, if you're reading this at 1:30pm ET, it's 1:30am, the next day, in Shanghai.
The flying parts of the trip were easier than I anticipated. If movies and books occupy you, than you can survive without much trouble. Just make sure you can sleep on the plane, because I couldn't, and consequently, after 24 hours without sleep and only a few hours of sleep the night before, I was pretty exhausted when I got to my room. I watched the new Star Trek and Wolverine movies, read, and watched the live footage of a really cool camera that showed a bird's eye view - on demand - from the plane looking down, as well as a front-facing view when the plane was taking off and landing.
I flew Japan Airlines for both trips, and revceived good service and good food. There wasn't much assistance for non-Japanese speakers, but that wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal - at least at the time - was that there were a few health scares with other passengers on both plane rides (I won't elaborate here). I'm happy to report, however, that my whole class arrived healthy and without quarantine issues.
After we gathered all our luggage (no issues there either, thankfully), we took a shuttle to the hotel in downtown Shanghai. Shanghai driving may require a post of its own, but the one word I would use to describe it is "lawless."
Here's a shot I took while we were driving through the middle of the city to the hotel. In my next post, I'll describe the city as I've seen it so far, but the sheer size is a sight to behold.
There are skyscrapers packed with houses as far as you can see in every direction, with shiny new buildings and run-down old ones crammed together. The highway system snakes throughout the city, anywhere from 30 to hundreds of feet off the ground, and it dominates the scene unlike any other I have ever seen in the US or Europe. (Again, I'll elaborate more on this in another post.)
I'm on the 20th floor of the hotel, and from here, you also get a sense of the disparity between the "old" city and the "new" one. Shanghai (wikipedia) has been under a historic amount of development for over a decade now, and it's easy to notice just by looking up from the street or out a window, since you won't have trouble finding a crane or construction site.
That's all for now. Today we went exploring for awhile, so I'll have a much more detailed post of the city as I've seen it, tomorrow, after the first day of training.
