Off to China!

9th – 10th April, 2013.

In the beginning, everything went very well.  Up at 5.30am, we completed all our final preparations and were organised when Dan called for us at 7.15am.  The traffic was heavy but flowed well, airport queues were minimal and we were checked in and processed with a couple of hours to spare for airport coffee and long walks up and down the terminal before our flight.  Then the downward spiral began.

 

Brisbane CBD, taken from the International Terminal, while waiting for our flight to China.

Our flight was due to leave at 10.20 am, but owing to an “electrical fault”, was postponed for half an hour.  Then another half hour.  Oh dear, we may miss our connection from Hong Kong to Shànghǎi.  Then another half hour.  Then another.  Oh dear, we have definitely missed it.

Announcing that the flight would then be three hours late leaving, Qantas pacified us with the offer of meal vouchers.  Pat thought $200 each would be nice – I thought it would be closer to $20.  While we were deciding how to spend our $20 - $200, there was a sudden announcement that the fault had been fixed and we were boarding!  After further delays caused by runway issues, we finally took off.

During our flight to Hong Kong, we were assured that passengers who had missed connecting flights would be looked after, and sure enough, a beautiful Chinese girl called Niki Wong was waiting at the gate for passengers for Shànghǎi – there were only four of us – to take us to our new flight.  While of average height, Niki Wong was finely boned and amazingly slender and shapely – probably tipped the scales at about 25kg.  She set off at a cracking pace, up and down escalators, on and off a train, to the other side of the airport, possibly the other side of Hong Kong.  While keeping her perfectly tailored jacket in view, I marvelled that such a tiny garment could actually be made for a grown up person.

Niki Wong assured us that our luggage would “probably” be on our new flight to Shànghǎi, but Niki Wong was wrong.  There is something rather sad about four people standing in an empty airport terminal, well after midnight, gazing soulfully at one piece of luggage, which doesn’t seem to belong to anyone, going round and round the carousel.  Eventually, we all trooped off to a desk where we filled in forms about lost luggage, and set off for Shanghai, carrying very little.  I thought longingly of my warm coat, scarf, hat and gloves at the top of my suitcase, ready to put on as soon as we arrived.

Had we arrived before 10pm, we could have taken the super fast train from the airport to the city, but at this hour, taxis, taking about an hour, were our only option.

Warned about taxi scams, we waved away taxi touts who approached us saying “Taxi!  No waiting!”  They had a point. The taxi line was about a kilometre long and I could only see two taxis.  The situation did pick up a bit at this point:

1.  Lots of taxis suddenly arrived, so the line moved quite quickly.

2.  The temperature must have been higher than the minimum of 2 degrees earlier in the week, so my light cardigan kept me warm enough.

3.  We didn’t have to haul along heavy luggage.

However, I began to feel uneasy getting into our taxi.  There was a cheap nylon seat cover fitted over the lumpy back seat, so that without either taking off the cover or poking holes in it, we couldn’t do up our seatbelts.  As we set off, my unease gradually turned to terror.  Our driver must have thought we wanted a bullet train experience, as he planted his foot to the floor and kept it there, passing other taxis as though they were standing still, leaning on his horn and weaving wildly from lane to lane.  We made the trip in about half an hour and I was thankful to arrive at our hotel alive.

Having been awake for about 23 hours by now, we fell into bed, hoping our luggage would arrive in the morning.