Day one had to be the craziest of them all. Not only did our flight leave at 12 A.M., but we also were scheduled to be in the air for over 15 hours on a direct flight from Houston to Beijing. In addition to that, we had two more hours to go because our destination is actually Shanghai. All in all we flew for around 17 hours. While it doesn’t sound entirely bad try doing it with constant turbulence, getting elbowed every 5 minutes by the person to your left, and do it when it is probably 50 degrees in the passenger section. This was absolute torture due to the fact that I could not sleep. Every time that I would doze off, thinking to myself that finally I can get some rest, we would hit more turbulent weather thus waking we up from my much needed slumber. At this point I was just anxious to get off and at least move around.
Watching the flight path and destination timer was probably the most reassuring aspect of it all because as the timer went from 15 to 10 to 5 to finally 1 hours till arrival, it finally hit me. We are going to China, a place that is halfway across the world and where most people have never been to. Despite the uncomfortable flight, I feel extremely grateful that I am able to participate in such a class that takes students overseas to do some field study work. During the last hour all this sense of joy and excitement started to pour in as I saw lights of Chinese cities below us, some 30,000 feet below. Before I knew it we touched down and taxied our way to our terminal.
Stepping out on Chinese land was such a great feeling. I would have to say though, when we finally got to the main part of the airport I was impressed with the infrastructure. Truthfully, I was somewhat jealous because back in the U.S. our infrastructure is degrading, we have old airports, and we just don’t do anything about it. Even more impressive, the place was extremely clean. I swear I could not find trash anywhere on the ground. At this point most of my stereotypes of China has faded away, no longer being influenced by others as I get to see everything for MYSELF. I would admit that I came here a little bit skeptical, but overall I would say that is no longer the case. I now see that China is a great country with some problems, just like the U.S. or any other Western country.
Despite this, our journey was far from over. We still needed to make a connecting flight to Shanghai’s Pudong airport. This actually wasn’t so bad though because it would only last about 2 hours. So before we knew it we had landed and reached our final destination, yay! The journey was far from over though, due to the fact that we still needed to take a train and taxi to Jiao Tong University. The train that we took is called the Maglev. Little did I know this is actually the fastest passenger train in the world, traveling at speeds of up to 268 mph. To our disappointment we only traveled 300 km/h to our destination, but it is still much faster than anything in Houston that I know! The envy has just grown stronger and stronger at this point. Hey, United States government, you could learn some things from China as much as you probably deny it. Anyways…this train was extremely quick and smooth. It literally took us a few minutes to get to our stop. As soon as we get out and head down to the street level chaos ensued. There were maybe 10 different taxi drivers walking around and asking us if we needed a taxi, probably because we all had cameras, looked like tourists, and looked pretty clueless. Luckily we were accompanied by two Chinese professors so they knew exactly what to do. Finally, we found a competent driver who had agreed to take me, Evan, and CJ to Jiao Tung. I must say this before hand, though, taxi drivers in China are insanely bold. Our driver and another driver almost got into a fight just because our driver waited a minute or two to leave. I thought to myself, “this would never happen in the states,” but then again this isn’t the states. It is a different country with a different culture so I tried my best to understand why these things happen here in China.
As we drove along and got onto one of their highways I couldn’t help but notice that some of these people had very expensive cars. I had seen Porsche, BMWs, and Mercedes Benzs. Everytime you see China on the news or in foreign media it always portrays their citizens driving cars from the 1980s. This was definitely a huge surprise to me nonetheless. What was also a surprise was the pace at which the drivers drove. I swear that they have no regard for traffic signals, rules, or other drivers. We zoomed down the highway and roads at a slightly scary rate, avoiding a few potential collisions and accidents. Some 20 minutes later we finally arrived at Jiao Tung University! To our relief we only had one lecture that day so there was plenty time for rest and sight-seeing. Talking about sight seeing, that following night we traveled on the subway to go to the Bund. If you don’t know what that is, it is one of the most famous places in China and in the East. There are building styles that resemble Europe and Asia all conglomerated next to each other, making it a very unique place unlike many others. This had to have been the height of the day. I have seen many pictures of the Bund and the famous Shanghai skyline, but to actually be able to see it personally is amazing.
After we were done looking around at the many marvels the city has to offer we headed down Nanjing Road which happens to be one of the busiest shopping areas around. There were thousands upon thousands of people strolling down the streets. It was a little overwhelming, but I had gotten used to it, after all, being in a city of 20 million you have to. Ironically we avoided all the shopping and went straight to where the food was at. We had stopped at some little restaurant that professor Fung suggested because of their tasty, steamed dumplings. I had only tried one, but that one was enough for me to know that they are, in fact, good at making dumplings. The time was maybe 8 o’clock local time when we finished , which would be 14 hours ahead of Houston. Due to this, we all were pretty jet lagged and were ready to call it a night. Shortly after dinner we took a taxi back to Jiao Tung University and slept like we never slept before.
