Monday September 7, 2015
A bit of a different trip diary than my normal adventures. Earlier this year for work, I temporarily moved to Shanghai, China from Los Angeles and this is the first trip I have taken outside of China since moving here. The whole adventure is weird as Daniel is traveling many hours to me instead of us flying off together somewhere. We have been in regular communication since I moved here and we quickly planned on the best time for him to come and visit and settled on September.
As the day of his departure approached, he received an email from Hainan Airlines that the flight from Los Angeles had been cancelled and instead he was being routed through Seattle. Originally, Daniel was going to be here for a long weekend and we were going to go to Hong Kong for Hong Kong Disneyland’s Anniversary. I had already booked the inter-Asia flights for us. Once his flight was cancelled, he had to select from the limited inventory of remaining flights which turned out to benefit us as he ended up coming a few days earlier and staying a few days later.
This opened up some opportunity for us to add another destination to his Asia travels. I had suggested we go to Jiufen in Taiwan which was the city that inspired the animated movie, Spirited Away. When I told Daniel the price of a quick trip there he asked me to look at the prices to Tokyo. They ended up being about the same price and Daniel said “Well I know where we are going now”. So I booked us a quick 2 night stay in Tokyo that allowed us to come back to Shanghai and do the Hong Kong trip that we already booked.
Everything all set Daniel then set out to make it Shanghai. He left Monday Los Angeles time and was set to arrive today (Monday). I was working today and had made plans to take one of the busses from our job site to the metro station to catch the train out to Pudong airport. My coworkers had told me how easy it was to do so I wasn’t too worried. Turns out, I ended up missing the bus to the metro stop. Now I started to panic as there was no easy way to get to the airport (even though we were not that far from it). Luckily, our administrative assistant knew a driver who could come pick me up, take me to the airport and wait with me for Daniel to exit customs and then take me back to my apartment.
There was some panic and stressful moments until the driver picked me up and before I knew it we arrived at Pudong Airport. We parked and the driver and I wandered to the arrivals area to wait for Daniel. Large airports can be chaotic, especially when you don’t really know the language and a bunch of international flights arrive at the same time. Eventually after waiting what seemed like forever, Daniel came through the doors and we were reunited. I was so relived to see him and it was amazing seeing him again after 4 months.
We got in the van and headed back to my serviced apartment – my home away from home located in Jinqiao area of Shanghai (Pudong District). After getting settled and Daniel freshening up, we decided to head out to Lujiazui to show him the tall buildings and the location of the Disney and Apple Stores in this area. We took some photos with the Oriental Pearl Tower and the had some dinner in the Superbrand Mall.
Because of all the last minute juggling of schedules we are off to Tokyo tomorrow after some more sightseeing in the morning so we decided to head back to the apartment to get some well earned sleep.
