Feb 24 - Fly to Shanghai and Board our Ship

Our airplane on the flight to China

We flew out of Vancouver International Airport at about 1:00 pm, after having to get our plane (an Airbus 330-200) de-iced.  That is an interesting experience, and from the amount of snow coming off the wings, likely a good idea.  After getting all the snow off with power washer type machines spraying a pink solution and what looked to be hot water, they sprayed some green stuff on the wings and then we sat for about 10 minutes - I guess to let the let this stuff set.  Once we began our take-off run, all the green stuff blew off, so I'm not sure what it was, but it seems to have done the trick, because we made it to Shanghai.

The flight was long (almost 12 hours), but we kept ourselves busy watching movies and eating.  They have a good selection of movies, mostly quite new.  They even had 3 of the 5 movies I had downloaded from iTunes, so I didn't watch them in case I wanted to watch them later.  We also kept an eye on our flight path which was quite an interesting picture.  It showed the route we were following in 3 dimensions, so as we flew along, we could see where Prince George and all the cities along the route were located.  Our flight took us North West along the inside passage route between the mainland and Vancouver Island, continuing that direction, even after we passed Prince Rupert.  A short time after that, it turned more toward the West, as we flew out over the Bering Sea.

Sometime during the trip, we turned farther in the west direction, and then started moving south, flying along the Russia coast, south over Japan, past North and South Vietnam, and the over China.  The flight monitor we watched showed us flying about 10 000 plus metres high at speeds of up to almost 900 km/h.  The temperature at that altitude fluctuated, but was mainly about -56 C with winds fairly calm.  As we moved south down the Russia and Japan, the winds became much stronger, going up to about 150 km/h.  On the monitor, it showed the path taken over Japan and south was in quite a jiggly line.

When we neared Shanghai and started going down in altitude, we got down closer to the tops of the clouds, and then finally into the clouds.  It took a while, but we got below the clouds and then could start seeing some of the land below.  It appeard to be on the river because there were patches of land that appeared quite muddy and wet, and then patches of water with boats on it (it was getting a little dark at that time, but still daylight.

The weather was cloudy with drizzle rain, and the temperature was about 10 C.  Finally we touched down at about 12:30am Kamloops time, about 4:30pm in Shanghai), and it seemed like there was a lot of taxiing to finally get to where our airline parked the plane (about a 10 minute bus ride from the terminal).  It is a huge airport with planes, trucks, buses, and lots of other vehicles driving around in what must be some sort of order.  At one point driving to the terminal, while waiting for some sort of signal that we could cross the taxi-way, there was a line of vehicles 3 buses and 2 baggage trains across, going in our direction, with about that many waiting to cross the other way.

As always, collecting our baggage, and entering the country was a bit of an adventure.  We did have to go through immigration, but we didn't have to have any special security checks done.  Then, through the exit, and out into the airport where our tour group was being met.  We first had to walk a gauntlet of people who were looking for de-planing folks, and that was like we were under scrutiny from everyone.

Lisa Wang - our tour guide

Lisa, our group's tour guide for the rest of the tour, met us and directed us to where we should wait.  Dawn and I were in group 3, which was also our bus number.  They have 11 buses for this cruise, so I assume that means there are 11 groups that were met.  Once everyone was accounted for, we left the airport to drive to our ship - during rush hour in Shanghai.  A 40 minute trip ended up taking a lot longer than that.   Our ship is quite large.  It is 7 levels high, with deck 2 being our room deck, and the first level with passenger rooms.  Passenger rooms go up to deck 5, and there is another deck above that.

We got to our room, which is very nice.  It is very similar to the rooms on ocean going vessels, but a little different.  There is a sitting area with a small couch/fold out bed, a huge king-size bed, a desk, a small fridge, a failry big bathroom with a shower plus a tub.  The downside is there is not a lot of closet space.  Dawn says she would give up the bathtub for a bigger closet.  It has a beautiful view across the river, to the west side of the river.  There are all the huge high-rise buildings (more than 10 floors) with all their lights.  It is a pretty spectacular skyline.  This is the financial area of Shanghai, and land is pretty expensive.

Part of the view from our cabin

We were getting quite tired by this point, so went to the dining room to eat.  We have been assigned to a table with four other couples, who we will eat with for all of our meals.  They are also one of three table we will be bussing with for our tours.  Meals seem to be buffet style, and although we didn't try everything, what we did eat was quite good.  Certainly I think we will get by with eating food we like, as well as trying other food that we don't know what it is.  I don't think we will lose much weight on this trip.

After dinner, we went back to our room to unpack and try and fit everything in.  We were supposed to go to a beginning of the tour lecture at 9:00 pm, so went up to the lounge on deck 5 to listen.  Not a lot of folks were there, and after about 15 minutes, Dawn suggested we go back to our room as I was falling asleep (and I suspect snoring a bit).  Then, it was off to bed.  A long and tiring day, but we are here.