The trip over and day one in Dalian

I left home at 6:00am on the Morning of Tuesday, November 30 for trip number four to China. The night before, I had picked up my rental car, this time a Toyota Camry. The drive was uneventful and I was checked in at the airport by 8:30am. At 10:00am, I boarded the American Airlines 777 and grabbed my business class seat - 10G. I was a little surprised that I ended up with a center isle seat - normally, I get a window seat. This proved to not be a huge deal as I could still see out the side windows somewhat, and the shades are all typically closed for most of the flight anyway. With the isle seat, I could get up and walk around whenever I wished. I, of course, pulled up the GPS display on my screen and noted only 7500 miles and 14 hours for the flight to Shanghai.

By 11:40am we were just north of lake Superior and headed on the route known as "Polar One". This would take us due north near the north pole then down to Shanghai. All but one of my flights there have taken this route - I assume due to the West-East jet stream. I received a bowl of warm nuts, a hot towel, and a sprite. At 12:15pm, nearing Hudson Bay Canada, lunch was served. I had the spicy shrimp w/ beef roulade, a salad, and stir-fried ginger beef. For the record, my other choices for main dish were: stuffed salmon, pork tenderloin, or garden lasagna. Lunch was tasty and I passed on dessert - I have found that stuffing myself on the plane and then sitting for 14 hours isn't a good combination. by 1:30pm we were exiting the north end of Hudson Bay and I took a Lunesta (prescription sleeping pill) to get some sleep.

As you may recall, I don't sleep well on a plane and for this trip decided to bring some sleeping pills along. I did a test run of the Lunesta about a week earlier and hoped it would do the trick. When I took it then, I found that w/in 30 minutes, it felt like a 1000lb sack of sleep over my head. So, I did indeed fall asleep fairly quickly on the plane, woke up occasionally, and officially woke up around 8:00pm (10:00am China time). I now had 9.5 hours of the flight behind me and only 4.5 hours to go. At that point, the plane was over Siberia and I walked up to the galley and grabbed a diet Pepsi. For the rest of the flight, I watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock, and listened to my mp3 player.

We landed on time in Shanghai at 2:40pm local time (12:40am Central US time) and soon deplaned. There it was a surprising 63 degrees. I went through immigration, grabbed my luggage, and headed over to terminal 1 to catch my connecting flight to Dalian. Unfortunately for me, that flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 9:30pm - uggh. Once at terminal 1, I spotted an earlier China Eastern flight leaving for Dalian at 4:30pm - so I found a ticket counter and managed to describe what I wanted well enough that I got my ticket changed. I actually would have not had enough time, but the the 4:30 flight to Dalian was delayed until 6:00pm as the inbound plane was late.

As I sat at gate 12 in the Shanghai airport, I saw the workers post a sign. On examination I was happy to see an English section, but was not too happy on what it said. The flight would be further delayed due to weather. With the warm temperatures, the entire region was socked in with fog. I knew the delay was going to be long as they served us our airplane dinner and drink at the gate. It was rice, dumplings, some sort of fish patty, and corn. Actually pretty tasty. There I continued to wait and watch occasionally angry passengers complain at the desk. Finally, they moved us to Gate 15 - where the waiting continued. It was quite an uncomfortable wait sitting on the airport chairs that long after sitting on a plane for the last 14 hours - so I would occasionally lay down across 3 chairs with my head on my backpack. I actually slept a bit on and off until they finally made the announcement that we would board the plane around 9:30pm. Unfortunately, after waiting another 15 minutes, they again announced a flight delay due to weather. More and more angry passengers began to gather around the agent counter until I would guess the crowd reached 50 or so. People even had there video cameras out recording it. At 11:15pm the sign suddenly changed to "Now Boarding". We got on the plane and took off around 11:40pm. Better late than never.


I actually had to wonder if I had kept my 9:30pm flight, if that would have already left. In any case, on the plane I managed to move to an unoccupied row where I could spread out somewhat. The seats were actually much closer together than typical coach seats in the US. In fact, I noted that from the front of the seat to the back of the one in front of it was only the length of my hand (~8"). At 1:00am we landed in fog in Dalian and my hotel driver was there ready for me to go. The 20 minute ride to the hotel was quiet and not surprising very little traffic. I was again staying at the "Swissotel - Dalian" - however this time, the hotel is known as "Swish Hotel - Dalian". Funny thing is, I had noticed a couple of years ago that on the Swissotel website, they never listed a Dalian branch. So, I imagine they were just "using" the name to give it credibility and in our ever shrinking world, The real Swissotel chain found out and put an end to that.
I awoke on Thursday morning (remember China is a day ahead) at 8:30am after a reasonably good first night of sleep. I headed down to the hotel restaurant and had my normal breakfast: melons, yogurt, and the gauntlet of juices: Grape, Pineapple, Tomato, Orange, and Apple. The restaurant changed a little bit since my last visit - they added an aquarium which overlooked the sushimi. Additionally, I didn't see the serving stands that typically housed pancakes, waffles etc. American Christmas music filled the background.

I then walked over to work (about 6 blocks) enjoying the surprising warmth (about 50 degrees). I got settled in my office, then went with Winson over to the nearby Japanese restaurant for a quick lunch. I had the whole fish, with egg/shrimp soup, sushimi, and another type of soup. I then worked in the office until 4:00pm when I decided to head back and rest up a bit.
I ended up being so tired that my nap from 5:00pm to 6:00pm turned into full sleep until 11:00pm where I then decided to just try and sleep through the night. At 3:00am I awoke feeling that I had made a big mistake falling asleep so early the night before. I struggled to sleep all the way to 6:00am Friday when I finally got up and took a picture of the skyline right before the sun came up (will be posted eventually). Side note: I actually forgot to bring my camera - so I will be taking photos from my phone. However, I cannot unload them until I return from China - sorry about that.

So, I then spent the next hour writing this entry. I will now actually try and exercise a bit and get some breakfast and head into the office...