Margaret Wang Thirty-something year-old software developer, runner, traveller, and aspiring feng-shui master with the occasional observation on everything else.

Photos

It only took me about a month to post the 500-some photos Mike took during our trip to China, but it took me another 2 months to finally say something. While picasa makes it so much easier to upload albums, it still can't read my mind - neither posting an announcement nor emailing friends who initially said they wanted to see the pics. Well, maybe it can; I just haven't gotten around to finding out.

My worst flying experience in 29 years of traveling overseas

I recently got back from China. The trip itself was great, but the trip out was horrible. I hope I've banked enough Karma for this to not happen to me again.

My plan was to fly from Portland to Tokyo, and in Tokyo, I'd meet up with my mom to fly to Shanghai together. Once in Shanghai, we were going to join up with a tour group (travel in the rural parts of China is still nearly impossible as individuals). Sounds like an easy enough plan, right? Apparently not. That was lesson one.

I'm on my flight to Tokyo, and I'm happily watching my movies. At one point, I happen to glance up at the main monitors, which were continuously displaying the flight route and related information. I noticed something odd about the picture, but I chalked it up to being tired and bleary-eyed. About 30 minutes later, after we received our mid-flight snack of ice cream sandwiches, the pilot announced that we were turning around, heading to Anchorage. Apparently a woman needed medical attention, and they decided to take the 2 hours to Anchorage, rather than the 5 hours to continue on to Tokyo. Not to worry, folks, we'll just drop her off in Anchorage, refuel, and be back on our merry way.

At this point, I knew I'd miss my connection to Shanghai, and I only hoped that there would be some way to get in touch with my mom once I was back on track in Shanghai. I wasn't sure when our domestic flight from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie in Hunan province would be, so I suspected, at worst, I'd have to take a later flight out and catch up.

Just before landing in Anchorage, the pilot came back on the intercom, and informed us that to continue on to Tokyo that night would exceed the FAA's maximum flying time for pilots. And due to another FAA regulation, the crew needed at least 10 hours of rest before resuming our flight to Tokyo. That meant we were spending the night in Anchorage.

We land in Anchorage, go though customs (yes, we had to go through customs), and then wait in the terminal. Anchorage is not a NWA hub, so there was one agent to assist about 300 passengers. She first took care of the business class folks, naturally, and when they were on their way, she first addressed us plebs with "There is a convention in town, so many of the hotels are booked." Great, just want you want to hear at 11pm, after 7 hours of now unnecessary flying. She then added that the Howard Johnson could take 50 passengers, so it was a free for all mad rush to the bus. I, thankfully, got a seat, and even more thankfully, was towards the front of the line once we finally (30 minutes later) arrived at the HoJo. I say this because there was ONE guy at the front desk to check all of us in, and he had to go through the tedious process of entering in our information.

Once I got to my room, I called Mike and my dad to let them know what happened. With nothing else to do, I went to sleep. At some point after falling asleep, my cell phone rang. It was my mom in Tokyo. She learned what happened, and she was going to wait for me in Shanghai. I had the Shanghai hotel number and the cell phone number of our tour guide, so I was to call one of them once I found out more about the next day's travel plans. All I knew was that we were going to take off around 11am the next day, but I had no idea when I'd get to Tokyo or when/if I'd get to Shanghai.

The next morning I met this girl, Emily, who was on her way to Guangzhou, China, to meet up with her friend. It just so happened that Emily sat a few rows in front of the woman in need of medical attention, so she told me everything that happened. Let me just say, it didn't make me all that happy or understanding in our flight's detour. Once we got to the gate, an agent made the general statement that all of us have been rebooked, and we'd find that flight information out once we got to Tokyo. Ridiculous. It was in the system; she just didn't want to look it up for us. Finding out in Tokyo wasn't going to do me any good if I have no way of calling anyone there. At least in Anchorage, I could still use my cell or my calling card. In Tokyo, I'd have to buy a card, after exhanging some of my money to Japanese yen. Fortunately for me, the not-so-nice agent had to let the crew on board, so I begged the other agent to help me out. She said there was just one computer working, but since I was in the front of the line, I was lucky enough to extract my flight information from Tokyo to Shanghai. I rushed to call my mom, and as it turned out, I was going to miss the flight to Zhangjiajie by a few hours, but she and I would catch a later one. No problem - just have to get to Shanghai without anymore glitches.

Fortunately, there were no glitches to Shanghai, and I found my mom waiting for me around 5:15pm, about 1.5 hours after the group had left for Zhangjiajie. While there are some domestic flights out of the International airport, Pudong, it was a Saturday night, and all the flights from Pudong to Zhangjiajie were booked. We had to go to the Domestic airport, Hongqiao, for our flight, so we took the hour-long bus ride. When we got there and checked in for our flight, the agent told us the flight was delayed 30 minutes. Over an hour after the scheduled departure time, around 9 or 9:30 pm, we took off for Zhangjiajie. I was more than overjoyed at the prospect of taking a hot shower and changing out the clothes I had been wearing for 48 hours.

About halfway through our flight, the flight attendant announced that the weather in Zhangjiajie was so bad we couldn't land, so we were going to land in Wuhan, a dinky little city, until the weather cleared up. We landed, sat on the runway for about 5 minutes, when the flight attendant then announced that the pilot had decided to cancel the flight and resume the next morning. So we all deboarded the plane, eventually got bused to a hotel, and I started the whole headache all over again.

We eventually got to Zhangjiajie the next morning around 11am, and we met up with the group at lunch. All in all, we only really missed a half of day of sightseeing, and we made a new friend, Liz, from Sunnyvale. She happened to have been sitting next to us on the plane, and she had her own story that day. Of course, the rest of the trip went smoothly and uneventfully, and in all my trips to Asia (and even Europe), I've never encountered as many "problems" as I did in this one trip alone. But I will definitely worry if I hear another request for a medical provider on any future flights!

Staying out of barney

Mike and I just returned from London, where we spent the week basking in the British sun. No joke - not a drop of rain - and it was actually quite a bit warmer than we had anticipated. In fact, since it's been 8 years since my last trek to Europe, I had forgotten the rarity that is air-conditioning there. The air-stiffling Tube sufficiently transported us from point A to point B, where I often arrived with a very angry Mike. Needless to say, we did much more walking... We spent the first portion of our time as tourists, visiting well known spots like Westminster, the British Museum (I still maintain that going there is like traveling the world, since they've succeeded at not only "borrowing" but also keeping the worlds historical treasures), the Tower of London, and of course, Harrods. We then stayed with Mike's friend Janet and her boyfriend Alan. They showed us around to the lesser tourist-travelled spots, but we mainly enjoyed their company. Mike took a crapload of photos, which I will, at some point, post in my album for you to see. Until then, cheers and mind the gap!

Vegas, baby, Vegas

I spent the past weekend in Vegas for a bachelorette party. No broken marriages or called-off weddings, but it was definitely a weekend of dancing, drinking, and soaking up sun by the pool. Eight girls in Vegas = a fun time! I put the photos up on my flickr page.