Finally, Leaving Shanghai!

My flight to Shenzhen is in the afternoon. I’m flying on an airline I’ve never heard of and booked it through a website is never heard of. I have no idea how much it is for overweight luggage, but I do know that I get to check 20kg for free and am only allowed one carry on bag. Hopefully everything works out.

Before I leave for the airport, I need to get my covid test results. After spending a while translating things and scanning the QR code, I made it to a log in page. It needs a name and either a phone number, ID number, or health card number. The hospital did give me a card with a number on it. I tried using it to login with but it didn’t work. Eventually, I tried my phone number and got in.

• 

• 

I downloaded my results. Still negative.

Next, it was time to check out of the hotel and take the metro with my stuff, again. I know it was a bad idea, but the street the hotel was on was a little awkward to get a cab from. And the metro was right there.

After carefully picking which station to change lines, I still had to do some stairs with my luggage, which was very not fun. But eventually I made it to the airport.

I didn’t realize before, but Shanghai had 2 airports – the one most international travelers come through, Pudong, and the other one, Hongqiao. Hongqiao was closer to my hotel and had cheaper flights to Shenzhen. And it was also called an international airport.

Unfortunately for me, Hongqiao did not seem any smaller than Pudong. And Chinese airports can double as very large, expensive shopping malls.

Checking in was not hard once I found the correct ticket counter. I also knew that my luggage would be overweight and I would have to pay for it. I assumed that they would have to take credit cards as they’re an airline and I can’t be the only foreigner that had to pay an additional fee at the airport.

Also, the person behind the counter informed me that my luggage had been flagged and I had to go around back to the inspection area. But, he didn’t have a card reader so I couldn’t pay at the check in counter.

I grabbed my one carry-on and followed him around the corner so that the guard could poke through my belongings and see that I don’t have anything that might blow up or whatever in my bag. Once the jigsaw puzzle of my stuff was all safely back in the bag, we were off to a different counter half a mile away so that I could pay for my luggage, which was almost as much as my flight, but nowhere near what I paid for my flights to China.

Then, it was time to walk 3 miles through the mall to my gate. I was able to fill up a water bottle in the airport, but I didn’t see anywhere to get a snack. I hoped the plane had some food. I was hungry!

I happily ate the crackers and peanuts I was served and wondered why there was a security guard on the plane with us. And read a book for the roughly 3 hour flight.

Once we landed, I collected my luggage and happily used one of the handy, and free, luggage carts and went in search of an ATM. I was not able to battle a strange metro system at 7 at night that I knew nothing about when I could just go outside and catch a taxi.

However, while looking to see if there were any signs for an ATM, I was approached by someone asking if I wanted a taxi. After half-heartedly trying to get away, we negotiated a price that was a 50 yuan higher than I would have liked (I’m not good at negotiating) and she helped me find that ATM.

After I had the cash, she introduced me to someone else and he pushed my luggage all the way to the car. That alone was worth the extra 50 to me.

Once in the car, I realized that I wasn’t going to be the only passenger and the driver spoke almost no English. Thankfully, my employer had sent me the hotel’s business card. (For those that don’t know, hotel business cards in China all have a “Take me here” with the address in English and Chinese so that the guests can just give the card to taxi drivers.) And away we went.

Eventually, we found the hotel and I made some new friends, security guards, who took my temperature, asked about health QR codes I didn’t have, and had me scan other codes to fill out forms that wouldn’t work right. They gave up when they realized it wasn’t working and let me go check in to the hotel.

Where there was more code scanning for forms to fill out and handing over quarantine paperwork and Covid test results. Some of the forms I only had on my phone, so they (the hotel clerk and the security guard who wandered in) took pictures with their phones.

But, eventually, the madness ended and I was give a key and a room number. I was finally in Shenzhen.

In a hotel room with no window. Not quite where I wanted to be, but getting closer.