We arrived at the airport in Houston early in the morning, around 5:30am. As we got ready to board our flight to Detroit, from which we would transfer to our flight to Shanghai within an hour, we get news that our flight to Detroit has been delayed. Most of us were not too worried, as we expected to take off soon enough. Unfortunately, the flight kept getting delayed because Houston did not possess the proper de-icing machines the plane needed. Luckily, we were able to fly out to New York City and spend one night there to catch a plane on China Eastern Airlines.
New York has to be one of my favorite places in America. The city that never sleeps has always been an exciting place for me to visit, so I didn’t mind having a layover there. After landing, we waited close to three hours for transportation to our hotel, which wasn’t the optimal situation, considering that we were starving as well. Finally, we made our way to our hotel and freshened up for a night out in Manhattan! Manhattan was absolutely freezing, and as a Native Houstonian, I was not well-adjusted to the cold weather. Fortunately, I had prepared well for cold temperatures in China, so I was able to get by.
In order to get from our hotel to Manhattan, we called two Uber XLs, which were pretty expensive. We were dropped off right in front of the Empire State building, but we did not go inside. Instead, we began walking towards Times Square, something I had been looking forward to. Everything was beautiful in Times Square! All of the lights, people, and excitement made me all the more happy to be there. We ended up wandering into the massive Toys R Us Store in Times Square and exploring its 4-5 stories. Some of the people in our group decided to ride the Disney themed ferris wheel inside the store itself which was fun to watch. Afterwards, we were all hungry, so Emma, a girl in our group, recommended a hole in the wall Ramen place to eat at. I have many dietary restrictions, which include being vegetarian, no eggs, and lots more, so eating at Asian restaurants isn’t always optimal for me. Nonetheless, I was able to get a fried rice dish with no eggs and doused it with soy sauce, and it was pretty good! After eating, we all walked to Central Park. I had never seen snow before, so this was something I was really looking forward to. We had a great time in Central Park, and then we walked around some more, visited the Apple store, and got an Uber ride back to our hotel.
All in all, our layover in NYC was great. In relation to my project, I didn’t learn much in my layover. My project is looking at unconventional avenues to political activism in Shanghai specifically, so our layover wasn’t particularly relevant. Nonetheless, it was nice to experience another global city like Shanghai. However, I was inching to get to China as quickly as possible. I wanted to dive right into research and explore a country I had never visited. I wanted to experience what it felt like to have language barriers for the first time and attempt to conversate with locals. We woke up early the next morning and left for Shanghai in China Eastern Airlines.
