4.29.7 – Sunday

Shanghai-Beijing - Home - Day 14
Leaving Shanghai with a BANG…Bang…Bang… And a toot…toot…toot.

“Ladies and Gentlemans, may we have your attention please. We regret to inform you”.
Uh oh… here it comes…
“Flight 5105 to Beijing…”
Yeah this could be trouble... they have already delayed or cancelled several flights due to nasty weather in the area and I'm sure ours will be another one and we'll miss our Connection in Beijing’
“Has changed the boarding gate to Gate B11 and will board now”
Whew…. Dodged that bullet… now to grab all the stuff and beat the cattle stampede to gate B11.

Whooops… this I not how we started the day… so lets back up to 5am, Shanghai time and the interesting wakeup call that is 5 minutes behind my alarm.

I'm in the bathroom, in the dark, doing. … OK …. Waaaayyyyy too much information…. The phone rings, I fumble behind me to find the one on the wall, and when I pick it up…. Nothing…no “Good Morning”… No… “This is your 5AM wake up call, the temperature is”….No… Hey Fengtzi Meiguo, Wake up…. Nothing….not even on hold music…. How Strange…. But this postage stamp room in this decidedly 2 star hotel has been strange from our arrival.

As we do our last Tiny Bathroom Tango I hear gun shots… or is that many gun shots… no… just firecrackers.
Did we mention the Chinese celebrate everything with firecrackers? This relates to the Bang… Bang…Bang

Did we also mention that the meal last night was a spicy climax to all the wonderful… and some not so wonderful meals that we enjoyed… or in some case couldn’t wait to escape? I can’t wait to see how well our tummies handle the Chernobyl experience last night during the next 24 hours. And of course this relates to Toot… Toot… Toot!

About the firecrackers, we previously mentioned that we had a lovely view of a construction site and the firecracker noise was the consecration by a monk and his assistant of the footings for the foundations that were just dug for a new high-rise behind the hotel. 3 or 4 long strings of firecrackers, sacred candles and fire, an incense burner and red paper scrolls were placed on and in the ground along with a large tray of fruits and meat offerings to the gods. [hmmm Bobby O’…maybe you shoulda had these guys on the Brickell job]
After pics of this “one for the books”, its more pics of DL as she attaches her travel mirror to the window to apply make-up [did I mention the poorly lit bathroom and no other mirror in the room?] I zip up the last bag and we bid farewell to Shoebox 816 of the Hengsheng Peninsula Hotel.

We rush to the breakfast buffet and grab some rolls for the trip to the airport thinking we’re late only to have our guide tell us we can go back up an get a full meal as the domestic airport is closer than she thought. So we trek back up to the buffet, have a quick omelet, go back down and check out and head to HongQiao airport for our flight to Beijing. After some last pics of the route, our guide and driver, we breeze through check in and after trading email address’, wave Bye Bye to Chen Xue and get set to run the gauntlet of security, once again setting off Bong Bong’s, many swipes of the magic wand and we find gate B10 to settle down for an hour wait.

“Ladies and Gentlemans, [that is not a typo] may we have your attention please. We regret to inform you”.
Uh oh… here it comes…
“Flight 5105 to Beijing…”
Yeah this could be trouble... they have already delayed or cancelled several flights due to nasty weather in the area and I'm sure ours will be another one and we'll miss our Connection in Beijing’
“Has changed the boarding to Gate B11 and will board now”
Whew…. Dodged that bullet… now to grab all the stuff and beat the cattle stampede to gate B11.

The flight to Beijing was same as the others… quickie Mini Meal [Rice or Noodle sir?] some NOWAT writing and we were on the ground.

Getting out of Beijing was another issue.
First we had to get the bags… then hike through “domestic to international” security, then put the carry on luggage through a big x-ray machine [minus the film] then travel 20 yards to put the luggage to be checked through another machine…[Hunh??!?! Why not just one for all?] then upstairs to go through Chinese Customs… another cattle stampede with the usual crowding of 5 lines into one at the gate that takes half an hour and then on to find the Continental international check in desk, which isn’t open yet. Sooo we get ito a very long line to wait. Now get this… there are 7 counters for 1st and business class of which there are 40 seats on the plane, and 2 kiosks for the other 300 seats, which, after you stand in line for an hour to get through, you must then go to one of the 1st class counters to check the baggage [Hunh?!?!?] yeah… another Chinese fire drill. But wait… there’s more… [Thank Gawd there are 2.5 hours between arrival and departure or we wont make it!]

Now you have to go though Immigration only this time with Disney style zig-zag queues and of course we get the one with 4 stations but only 2 officers. Once through this maze… we head to the next security checkpoint where we again must maneuver the x-ray, Bong-Bong-Bong [we finally figure its my belt buckle] a more thorough wand job [they just started all this so they are still taking it seriously] ditching the last of the water bottles “Hello…No bottle on plane” and finally making our way to the concourse…that leads to the concourse… that leads to stairs [did I mention the Chinese like stairs] to another concourse and yet one more till we arrive at gate 92 and settle in at a little café for some pie and tea… and a little NOWAT editing.

Chucky spots a couple of cute babies and as he’s snapping away he realizes the babies are Chinese in the arms of westerners. He has discovered 5 families from a church group in South Carolina that have made the trip to adopt these beautiful little girls. The process has taken them 2 years and is very extensive down to matching certain physical characteristics of the parents with the children [seriously… they get a full profile and photos of the parents and find the right child] The babies are adorable and the new parents beaming, truly a blessing for them all.

Dragon Lady’s Notes & Observations…
The Chinese have a real population crunch and the government limits how many children you can have. If you live in the city, you can have one child. If it’s a girl, you're out of luck. If you live in the countryside and you have a girl, you can wait 5 years and try for a boy. If #2 is a girl, you're done. These are usually the ones put up for adoption. If you have any more kids the government punishes you by restricting the type of jobs you can have… where you can live and various other forms of harassment.
The unfortunate surplus of girl babies is greater than the number of adoption avenues. Boys cannot be adopted; they are the labor pool of China which still places very little value on the female population.

The flight back is brutal… they cant seem to control the AC and you can hang meat in our end of the plane [colder than some our Walk-ins Rene'] this coupled with my TV on the fritz makes for a very long flight. I drain both laptop batteries finishing NOWATS and settle in for a miserable 4 hours sleep.

Customs and immigration in Newark are a little better than Beijing but not much. First you get the luggage… then you trek to security… then to customs…. Then to immigration and finally a run to the gate because they are already boarding the Ft Lauderdale flight. Nothing exciting here except that son Henry is also picking up one of our friends who was coming back from Virginia and the luggage/people ratio didn't quite fit the car, the trunk refused to close and we had to ride with luggage in lap to the house.

Most of this was written on the plane, and edited at home. The wrap-up and final comments are forthcoming as soon as the Dragon Lady fulfills her editorial duties and adds her own factoids and comments.

再见朋友
Zài Jiàn Péng-You
Chuck and the so damn happy to be back in her own bed ‘cause she’s a Draggin’
Dragon Lady