We slept so well and so hard last night. The bed was wonderful, and it had just a comforter in the softest, smoothest duvet to cover up with. After the blanket we’ve been sleeping under on the Sapphire Princess, it felt heavenly. We awoke to a Shanghai just as foggy and dreary as the day before, but it didn’t change our plans for the morning.
First up was the included breakfast buffet, and I was instantly reminded of my trip to China in 2004. Our tour had promised us American breakfasts, and we had no idea how important they’d be to us. It was the only meal of the day where we had food we could really eat. Lunches and dinners were served family-style, meals not of our choosing, and these were all at high-end restaurants. Every table was round, seating about eight of us, and in the center was a lazy susan. Dish after dish was set on that turntable, and we’d spin it around and help ourselves. The food was so strange to us, and, frankly, somewhat repulsive, with fish heads and tails and eyes looking up at us. Those items, and anything indistinguishable, would go round and around untouched, but if something even remotely resembling American Chinese food was served, we each hoped it was set down in front of us, because otherwise it was gone by the time it got around. We lived on rice…and watermelon. When the watermelon was set down, we knew the meal was over.
Today’s breakfast buffet had a Chinese side and an American side consisting largely of things I can’t eat (eggs, breakfast meats, caffeinated tea and coffee), so I had oatmeal and peach slices. While we ate, we quickly put together a plan that hinged on two things: a late check out and an ATM. G took care of the former and I the latter and we took a taxi to the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world after the Burj Khalifa. It was so foggy that we knew we wouldn’t see a thing from the top, but we were not deterred.
Once we arrived, we were warned that visibility was negligible, but we could look up and see that was the case. The top of the building was in the clouds. Still, we weren’t the only crazy ones going up, there were several others that we could tell were from around the world doing the same. The display at the bottom was worth the price of admission (less than $20 each). There was an entire history of skyscrapers- well, the first one was a 55-story building, but due to its construction it qualified- and it pleased us to no end to see several that we’ve visited. The elevators in the Shanghai Tower were touted as the fastest in the world. Wait, wasn’t that what the Burj Khalifa claimed about theirs, too?
Looking up at the Shanghai Tower in the clouds
Looking up at the Oriental Pearl Tower, the iconic TV and radio tower that is the third tallest in the world
At the base of the Shanghai Tower, a great exhibit with lots of familiar iconic landmarks
Dubai skyscrapers tower above the clouds
Been there, done that...
...and saw the building commonly called the Gherkin...
...and The Shard...
...and Tower Bridge
Singapore’s Merlion statue...
...and the Marina Bay Sands
G remarked that we should go there one day ;-)
The Petronas Towers
(ditto) ;-)
Hong Kong’s skyline
More skyscrapers that any other city
The International Commerce Center we visited during our
Hong Kong stop is the building on the far left
The Shanghai Tower at sunset
with Shanghai Wirld Financial Center on its right
We were on this double cloverleaf going back to the Longemont Hotel
The Pearl Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower
The Shanghai Tower records
We stepped out on the 118th floor to the inside of a cloud. However, as we made our way around the building, we could see momentary clearing. In fact, the view of the Bund was clearer than what I had seen in 2004. I was shocked by the changes in Shanghai in the past 14 years. I’ve read that the 19th century belonged to the British, and the 20th to the US, but that the 21st century will be China’s turn. I believe it.
A clearing in the clouds gave us a great view of the Shanghai World Financial Center,
118 stories tall
The Jin Mao Building, 93 stories tall
The Oriental Pearl Tower
Shanghai view from 119 floors high
We couldn’t dawdle; we went back down and took a taxi back to the Longemont Hotel, arriving just before our check out time of 1pm. We met in the lobby for our 1:30pm shuttle to the airport. There were just three couples in a van, and again, thankfully, we had an English speaking escort. He told G and I that our flight would be leaving from Terminal 2 but we already knew that wasn’t correct and decided between us to get off at Terminal 1. By the time we arrived (it took nearly an hour), he had corrected himself and we felt better not going rogue.
I knew we were going to have issues with our flights, and the first one involved where to go for check in. Our flight numbers were Korean Airlines but it was a China Eastern codeshare flight to Seoul and a Hawaiian Airlines code share flight to Honolulu with only 75 minutes between flights. We went to the China Eastern counter and our bags could be checked through to Honolulu (yay), but we could not get the boarding passes for our connecting flight in Incheon/Seoul. This didn’t bode well.
Still, there was no use in stressing over it. Instead, we each moved a pair of undies and clean socks from our large suitcases to our backpacks (in case we were spending another night in another city), checked our bags and, with exactly one hour to spare, headed to our next ‘shore excursion’ of the day: the world’s fastest train, called the Maglev.
The world is just one big amusement park to us, isn’t it? ;-) Tallest, longest, fastest...we always were avid roller coaster fanatics.
The Maglev (for Magnetic Levitation) is German technology that China wanted to install. The entire line is only 17 miles long, from between Terminals 1 and 2 at the Shanghai Pudong Airport, and takes exactly 8 minutes. The fallacy is that it doesn’t really go into the CBD, or anywhere that people might need to go, so from there some other form of transport is required for most people. But it was constructed as proof that the technology works. As soon as G heard about it in Destination Expert Narelle Froude’s lecture on Shanghai, it attracted him like a bee to honey.
We walked to the station (all underground between the terminals, with McDonalds and Starbucks and other restaurants and shopping), bought round trip tickets for 70 Yuan each (about $10), went through security and waited just a few minutes for the train to arrive. It looked every bit like a bullet train, and seats inside were three on each side. At exactly the scheduled time, the doors closed and off we went. A display in each car showed the speed in kilometers per hour, and, sure enough, just as promised, we reached 431 kph, or 268 mph. The ride was smooth except for that half a second when we passed a Maglev going in the other direction and that was a quick bump. I have never gone that fast on land (our plane to Honolulu lifted off at 175 mph) and it is a little difficult to focus on individual things outside the windows. Cars on the expressway seemed to be standing still.
The entrance to the Maglev Station at Shanghai Pudong International Airport
A model of the Maglev train
Reaching peak speed
The conductors salute the trains as they leave
Our train
We arrived at the end station and then immediately exited and went through security and the turnstiles and reboarded the same train to return to the airport. At just a few minutes after 4pm, the time we could first go through immigration and security, we were in line for that. When G had said at breakfast that he wanted to do both things before we left Shanghai, I was a bit incredulous that it was even possible, given our tight time schedule, but I should never have doubted his determination.
Our flight to Incheon/Seoul was less than 2 hours and we were served a meal. A meal. It consisted of things we didn’t recognize, of course, but we ate the rice and the watermelon and a roll. Chinese food déjà vu! Korea landing forms were handed out, and we were told that all passengers needed to fill one out, but that there were none in English. Okaaayyy. Were we going to have to go through immigration just to change planes? We’d never make it. We decided that we were simply going to try to go to the gate for our next flight, and see how that worked. As soon as we landed I turned on my phone and saw that we were landing in Terminal 1 and taking off from Terminal 1. That sounded hopeful.
This was funny. My iPhone battery was at 8% when we boarded the flight to Incheon/Seoul because we hadn’t stopped running all day. The USB charger in my seat didn’t work, nor did the chargers of my two closest seat mates. I stretched my 10’ cord three seats away and plugged it in at these three friends’ suggestion (conveyed through sign language).
Relying on the kindness of strangers. People are so wonderful!
As proof that, at some point in our lives we must have done something good, as soon as we exited the jet bridge, there were two Korean Air reps holding a piece of paper with G’s name on it. Huge sighs of relief! They told us to do exactly what we had planned to do- go directly to the gate- to get our boarding passes and that Hawaiian Air knew we were coming. We asked how they knew that we might have an issue and the check in agent in Shanghai had flagged our reservation.
So while everyone else on their flight had to take their landing cards and go through immigration, we took a train to another part of Terminal 1, went though transfer security (and had to leave behind the water on which I had just spent our last Yuans in Shanghai) and arrived at our gate when the plane was mostly boarded. We were given boarding passes with two seats together (amazing, on a totally full plane) and asked to see our baggage tags, which we hoped meant they were checking to make sure our luggage was on the plane. We were seated and the plane left the gate just minutes later. I had to take my contacts out at my seat (always scary…I can’t imagine trying to find a tiny piece of plastic on the dark floor of an airplane), but even that went well.
The plane was full of Korean honeymoon couples going to Hawaii, and I felt (and surely looked) very old. In fact, we may have been the oldest ones on that flight. It was a rather strange realization! Shortly after takeoff a dinner was served that was basically the same meal we had on the flight from Shanghai, but this time the mystery meat was chicken and we had a cookie instead of watermelon. We also had kimchi. I eat kimchi, I really do, but only occasionally, and in choosing between kimchi and a cookie, I prefer the cookie, so dinner #2 was white rice and a cookie. I obviously had not been able to special order vegan meals. G fell asleep immediately and I, of course did not.
I had downloaded the second season of Anne with an E on Netflix when we had WiFi at Taipei101 (I think) and started making my way through them. The flight was just under eight hours, and how far have we come with this travel thing when that doesn’t seem too long, but I did start to really drag about two hours before landing. Global Entry is worth every penny and then some we paid for it; we were through immigration in seconds but still had to wait quite a while to see if our luggage made it. I can’t tell you how relieved we were to see it appear on the carousel, although the wheel on my suitcase that had been fixed on the ship is now lost for good. Luckily, it’s a double wheel and the one that’s left still rolls...kind of.
We got into our room by 12:30pm and I face planted on the bed and slept all afternoon. We had dinner on the beach and then walked along the beach afterward. Sunset #1 was absolutely beautiful, as so many here are, and we are in our room with our balcony door open right now, listening to the acoustic guitarist playing at a barefoot bar nearby.
And now we begin the third segment- the recovery segment- of our around the world adventure.
Life is good. :-)