I'm trying to put all of my "China Update Emails" on this blog, and I'm not sure how to backdate the blog yet... This is the first email I wrote over here which chronicles the flight here and some 1st impressions. I find that 1st impressions are so important to capture at the time...otherwise we forget!
Sarah’s China Update emails
21 March 2010
Hello all,
I wanted to let everyone I know that I arrived safe and sound here in China. My trip here started out on a shaky note...the night before I left, was sick as a dog...probably a combination of nerves, trying to cram in too much prior to leaving etc...but I left as planned and flew from Greenville, SC to Detriot. However, the flight in Greenville was late arriving and we missed our connection to Shanghai. I couldn't get over the fact that there were 5 people from Greenville, SC going to China! So, we had a choice of either taking the next direct flight (meaning the same flight but 1 day later, spend the night in Detroit), or getting rerouted through Paris that got us into Shanghai 7 hours later. I took the latter option. As it turns out, really glad I did. I was sitting on the flight ready to land in Paris, CDG Airport (those of you who have flown in there know that this is not a friendly airport to navigate around!), when the flight attendant came up and said I had priority deplaning. When I got off the plane, but before I entered the jetway, there was an Air France person waiting on me (name on the sign and everything!) and she took me off, down the steps, and into a car and she was taking me to the 1st class lounge. Now, I had been in the business class lounge before, but never arrived this way! As it turned out, I had never been to this lounge. When I got there, I went through a separate security screening, gave this agent my passport and boarding pass and she get me through passport control while I sat down in a very posh lounge! I imagine this is how VIP's travel every day (although I didn't see anyone in the lounge I recognized) There was a chef who would have prepared anything I wanted (although still having a queezy stomach I didn't want anything). I waited there until it was time to board and the agent came to get me. She took my boarding pass and passport and my carry on luggage and took me back outside to a car (this time it was a brand new Mercedes Benz 350!) and drive me to the base of the jetway, took me up the steps and escorted me on the plane to my seat...1A. I had been upgraded to 1st class going from Paris to Shanghai! The treatment in 1st Class was pretty nice..but not as nice as the seat that reclined fully flat and when it came time to sleep, I was able to actually sleep! It made the very long trip tolerable. I don't know why any of this happened...I attribute it to being nice to the agent at Detroit when the other 4 people on the flight from Greenville were somewhat irate! I was very grateful.
I got through passport control just fine and my company had a driver waiting for me to take me to the hotel here in Shanghai. I've tried to stay up as much as possible so that I can sleep tonight. There is 12 hours difference (as I write this, it's 6:30pm on Sunday night...so it's 6:30 am on Sunday morning EST in the US).
I'm in a nice hotel here in Shanghai. I'm not sure yet, as I type this mail, how I'm going to send it, as logging into the internet will require a payment of some type here at the hotel.
Heres a photo of the view from my hotel window...a big city...that's about all I can say for the moment.
So, that's the first update...more to come as the adventure continues!
No comments:
Post a Comment