Layover in Shanghai

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 15
(Layover on return flight from Vietnam)

July 27, 2012

We arrived in Shanghai around 8 a.m. on Friday (about an hour late from our expected arrival). After a long walk through the terminal, we finally arrived at the initial passport control area. From that line-up, people were sent in three directions, either into the international terminal, to domestic flights, or to immigration/customs. We would have been sent to the international terminal, but we told the officials that we planned to spend our 8-hour layover exploring Shanghai, so were sent to immigration and customs. The night before, while researching about our time in Shanghai, we had discovered that if visiting China for less than 48 hours no visa is needed to leave the airport, so we knew we'd have no problems with immigration. Soon our passports were stamped with Chinese stamps, and we were outside security. I (Ali) was especially excited to be able to get a new country added to my list because of this layover!

We made a quick stop at a currency exchange kiosk to get some Chinese Yuan, and also bought a few snacks at an airport convenience store to tide us over until we could find some real food. Then we headed off to find the fast train into downtown Shanghai that we had found out about while researching the night before. The train was a maglev train, which was pretty interesting to experience. The train got up to 430km/h during the 8-minute ride, which was pretty astonishing, although we decided the ride was definitely not as smooth as the KTX trains in South Korea.

Approaching Shanghai, a.k.a. high rise city

Maglev tickets!

Requisite photo op

It's a train!

The maglev train ended at a subway station where we bought day passes for the subway and navigated our way underground to the subway heading downtown. We noticed right away that the Shanghai subways were definitely not up to the standards of the Seoul and other South Korean subways. It was fine, just not as clean and not as smooth of a ride as the Korean subways. And we definitely missed the a/c aspect on such a hot day. Before too long we were exiting the downtown subway station and right where we wanted to be: in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower. We spent a bit of time walking around the walkways in front of the tower and over the highways, taking pictures of the tower, then got in line to get tickets. The line took quite a long time, but once up the tower, we enjoyed the views of Shanghai from the various lookout decks. While in line for the elevator to take us to the top deck, I started to get worried about getting back to the airport in time for our flight to BC. I really didn't want to miss it! Jonathan calmed me down, though, and I enjoyed the view from the tallest lookout. After coming back down the tower, we stopped at a Subway shop right nearby to grab some food, and then took the subway and maglev train back to the airport.

(Note: We learned about the Shanghai maglev train from an article from Time's Travel section, "Shanghai: 10 Things to Do." If you're planning to visit the city, check out the article for interesting ideas and more info on the maglev train.)

Subway tickets

Downtown Shanghai

Year of the Dragon

Mobile ice cream stand

Dragonali

Roundabout

What we came to do

#Selfie!

Towering over us

Line for the main elevator up the tower

Random carved wooden lion

Tiny little cruise ships

Bottle opener building

Huangpu River

U.F.O. - unidentified funny-looking object

You Are Here

In the traffic circle

Hi

The ceiling of the elevator was a mirror...

During our trip back, we both got a little bit worried about making it back to the airport in time for our 4 p.m. flight since it seemed like we had to wait a long time for each train to arrive. In the end, we did make it back in enough time, but we sure rushed and speed-walked through the airport back to security. Once in the line for security we knew we'd have enough time, though, so we could relax a little. The line didn't take too long and soon we were back in the international terminal.

As it turned out, we needn't have rushed at all -- our plane was delayed, and the departure time kept being pushed back further and further. Finally we heard an announcement that we would be given the supper that we were supposed to get on the plane, since it was already quite a bit past suppertime by that time. We were quite ready for the meal and ate it gladly. Once we were done, we still had to wait. Finally, after two hours of waiting, our plane had arrived and we could board. Before boarding, we quickly wrote my parents an e-mail letting them know that we would be at least two hours late into Vancouver. Once boarded we sat at the gate for another hour before moving. And then, when we thought we'd finally be taking off soon, we ended up sitting on the runway for yet another hour! The craziest occurrence was still to come, though. Just as we were gearing up for our take-off, all of a sudden it seemed like all the passengers on the plane burst into activity. They stood up, opened overhead compartments, rearranged contents, and just in general seemed to have something very important to accomplish. The flight attendants tried in vain to get everyone seated again. The passengers, who by this time were quite riled up, yelled at them and mayhem continued. Finally it seemed like the pilots had had enough of this and they just started down the runway anyway. People quickly sat back into their seats, and buckled up, but it wasn't until we were moving that they all started cooperating. It was quite something to witness! We'd never seen anything like it before.

The overnight flight was long, but uneventful. We had been scheduled to get in at 11:40 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, but because of all the delays, we actually arrived around 4 p.m. Going through immigration and customs was a breeze and we got to the baggage claim soon after and quickly saw my parents. After hugs (and catching a few glimpses of the opening ceremony of the London Summer Olympics on the TVs in the baggage claim), we told them all about our crazy delays and they told us about getting to the airport two hours before our flight and how they kept themselves occupied until we arrived. We grabbed our backpacking backpack off the luggage carousel when it came around and then headed to the parking lot for our two-hour drive east to Hope, BC to spend the weekend at the BC Campmeeting campground with family members and friends.

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And that ends our travel series on our Vietnam trip! It was a wonderful trip, but after nine months of living, working, and traveling in Asia, we were pretty happy to be back in North America again, and excited to move into the next chapter of our lives.