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Asia 2015

Asia 2015 Day 4: Tokyo to Shanghai to Hong Kong

Thursday September 10, 2015

Today was the day where I received more stamps in my passport in a single day than I ever thought was possible. We didn’t even really do much, but such is the immigration process between our three stops today: Japan, China, and Hong Kong. We woke up at 4am to catch our super early (533am) metro to catch the Skyliner (at 558) to get us to the airport for our Air China flight back to Shanghai. We lucked out and our plan went smoothly and we made it to the airport before the check in and security was even open.  After security we had some Airport McDonalds for breakfast and then settled in to wait for the flight. Of course, they called us over to inspect our visas for China and we finally got on the flight. 

The flight to Shanghai was surprisingly smooth and without the usual turbulence and we cruised into Pudong without any delay. Arriving at Terminal 2, we headed over to Terminal 1 to get our boarding passes and seat assignments for our flight later today to Hong Kong. We had a lot of time to kill and we considered taking the MagLev train into Shanghai, but the time to get from the Longyang Road Station to my apartment would have taken just as long as a taxi from the airport. Maybe another time!

We headed to the apartment where I swapped out some clothes for the Hong Kong portion of the trip and Daniel managed to do a load of laundry. We had a quick lunch at the apartment and decided to go downstairs to the mall next to my apartment, Life Hub. We did some quick shopping and then had dessert at the Dairy Queen before heading back up to gather our things and head to the airport. 

Smooth sailing in the taxi back to Pudong Terminal 1 and through security and we had some time to kill. Also, not surprising, there was a 90 minute delay on our China Eastern flight to Hong Kong and you know its bad when they decide to pass out meals in the terminal. Let’s also highlight the fact that Terminal 1 gets full sun from the afternoon and it was super hot in the terminal. After forever, we got on the bus to get to the airplane on the tarmac as before. 

The flight to Hong Kong was pretty uneventful other than its tardiness. The in flight meal service was definitely something I had never seen before. I was totally into the in-flight movie about some guy who fell in love with a snake demon. There were no english subtitles but I was totally into it except of course the ending was cut off as we were ready to land so I will never know how it ended or even what the title of it was. 

Being late in the evening at Hong Kong we had to hustle to get to the last airport express of the night to get into the city. We managed to get Octopus cards and load them up before the train left. We were staying in Causeway Bay and it was totally confusing finding our hotel. We didn’t have our phones available because our hotel was providing us with an access point. Thankfully, there were not a lot of people out at this hour so it wasn’t too embarrassing and we found the hotel just after midnight. 

Lucky for us we got upgraded to a suite which was massive and had a great view. We crashed and slept soundly.