Arrival in Shanghai
Having been to New Zealand before, I’m allowed to make the statement that this was by far the longest plane ride I had ever been on. It just dragged on and on and on. The fact that we also sat on the ground for 2.5 hours in Detroit due to the GPS not working on the plane also made things seem much longer.
Nonetheless, the cycle of eat, watch a movie, sleep, repeat, got me through the flight. We touched down at PuDong airport around 5pm and made our (I say our, as I’m traveling with a coworker) through passport control and the temperature scanner (apparently if you are running a fever they will pull you out of the line for a “health consultation”. We grabbed our bags and went through customs, which was essentially nothing if you had nothing to declare (just walk right out the door).
From there, we hopped on the maglev train that hit speeds of 300 kmph (made a really cool humming sound when we were in the station) to transfer to a subway line. We rode about 6 stops then changed subway lines again to make it within a few blocks of our hotel. Admittedly, the subway wasn’t all that scary – everything was in English as well and the system worked just like any other subway in the world. In fact, looking around, everyone was dressed in very fashionable clothing – if it wasn’t for Mandarin being spoken, you might have thought you were in Manhattan. One thing that was very apparent on the subway was how obsessed everyone is with their cell phones. I saw one man using two phones to send messages nonstop – the entire ride. People didn’t even look up.
I checked into my hotel room around 8pm and took a much needed shower, hooked up to the internet, skyped home, had a snack and went to bed. I popped two Tylenol PM prior, and thankfully it allowed me to sleep through the night. I woke up once around 4am and thought that was the end of sleep, but thankfully managed to doze back off until 7:30 am.
First Day in Shanghai – meeting with the Fluids Sales Team
Today’s word of the day is food! After generally avoiding airline food and not knowing whether I was more hungry, tired, or feeling badly in need of a shower (and sometimes getting those feelings confused), today I felt a lot more on track.
This morning, the hotel buffet was the most extensive selection I’d ever seen. There were chefs making omelets to order, fresh fruit (most of which I didn’t recognize), Chinese vegetables and noodles, cereal, granola, bacon and baked beans. I stuck with items that I could identify, but might branch out more tomorrow, as I was told that since we’re staying in a high end hotel, there was very little to be afraid of eating for fear of food poisoning.
Shortly after 9 am, a coworker from the Shanghai sales office came to pick us up in her jeep. I was surprised to see a Jeep in Shanghai (although I’ve been told you can find anything in a city like Shanghai). We made our way very slowly through the city, horns blaring, people cutting one another off to the sales office. Once there, we met with the sales/product specialist team to discuss some topics and then had lunch at a Sezchuan place in the fancy building where the offices are located. Dining is quite the experience in China!!! First came the ordering process. There was a lot of back and forth with our Chinese colleagues and the waiter. To me, Chinese seems to take on an angry tone towards one another, but I’m sure they weren’t arguing about what to eat. The six of us sat at a large round table with a giant lazy susan and the food came out dish by dish, served family style and never stopped. I requested a fork, but managed to eat my entire meal with chopsticks! There was lettuce leafs with a peanut sauce, spicy beef covered in hot red peppers, in a broth that was boiling when served (with a hot rock at the bottom to keep it warm), shrimp with cashews and onions, fish in a broth with peppers and bean sprouts, bok choy and mushrooms, a barbecue type beef with quail eggs that was a bit sweeter, noodles with what seemed like little bits of bacon (that was delicious!) and buns with a hole that you put peppers inside of, plus hot tea and cold tea. Everything was delicious and totally unlike any Chinese food I’ve ever had back home. (To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to eat the stuff back home after having a taste of the real stuff).
After lunch we met with another important fluids guy, then had his personal car/driver take us back to the hotel. I decided to check out the fancy hotel pool and then shower up before dinner.
Our good friend (who still works for IR, but is now in a different sector) took us out to dinner. We went to a very fancy looking place right down the road, and again, the whole back-and-forth 15 minute dialogue that is ordering began…Magically, food started arriving at our table without seeming end. There was brown, lumpy tofu that actually had good flavor to it, whole shrimp (heads, legs, and all) that was cooked very flavorfully, a whole fish (head, skin, and all) – again, very tasty, fried rice, small beef rib things, larger beef chunks (the closest thing I had all day to American Chinese food), hot and sour soup (much less sweet than the American variety), and some green cooked leaves, tea, and TsingTao beer.
Clearly, my first real day in China was a much more exciting and tasty one than the eternity spent on the plane yesterday. Tomorrow I’m off to explore some sights in Shanghai! Hope to have lots of good pictures as a result!
