There’s nothing like sitting at your gate in the airport and watching your boarding time slowing tick by, your flight never being called. After less than four hours of sleep, you continue to wait, and at this point you’ve missed your connecting flight. China seems farther than before. It’s a bit embarrassing that the largest airport, that used to be the Continental hub, in the third largest city in the United States, cannot figure out how to defrost a plane. Thankfully, Shelby somehow convinced Delta to send us somewhere that would eventually connect us to Shanghai. Spending one night in New York, is not the worst thing that could happen – even though I’d be back in a week’s time #CMANYC15.
Jeh and Nicole left us as we got to New York, while the rest of us waited as Shelby dealt with Delta. We did have a little scare when Matthew’s bag hadn’t come out onto the carousel, even 20 minutes after everyone else’s bags arrived. February has always been a bad month for me (did I mention my suitcase broke?), but at this point I started feeling as though I’d infected the whole group with my bad luck – this was a great start to our trip. Thankfully, as Matthew went to talk to a Delta representative, his bag finally came; and soon after Shelby arrived with our NY hotel information and a bus to take us there. Maybe this trip could be salvaged after all.
In New York, we took an Uber to the Empire State Building – a ticket heckler outside the tired to convince us that it’s the tallest building in the world, but we knew better. We then ended up in the Toys R’US store in Times Square, because we’re all basically overgrown children. I rode the indoor Ferris Wheel because I’m the biggest child there is. For dinner we headed to a ramen place that Emma recommended – and I find out that ramen is actually a Japanese dish (who knew? not me obviously). To finish off the night we headed to Central Park and Rockefeller Center because we’re basic NYC tourists.
The next morning, we were on our way to China on China Eastern Airlines – who get really mad about cellphone use on planes (airplane mode, come on!). The long 15-hour flight gave me some time to watch some movies, and to think about my project a bit more. Sadly nothing in New York has anything to do with my topic – marriage trends in China, but I has time to read up some more articles about the Marriage Market while in New York.