My Passage From India

Hey everyone!  I left India on 30 November and arrived in Shanghai on 01 December, quite early in the morning.  Here's a brief account of that trip and my first day in China.

At the duty-free in Indira Gandhi International Airport, I bought a few souvenirs before settling at a McDonald's to eat a McSpicy Paneer which, I'm happy to report, did not make me ill at all.  In fact, one of the reasons I've taken so long to post anything since leaving India is because I've been well enough to go outside and do things.

Nom nom nom

It's GameTime™!

When I ordered the food from McDonald's, I didn't know that my flight would include a meal.  I was super-stuffed by the end of the meal, in no small part due to the fact that I was unable to eat much throughout my stay in India.  After eating my meal, I settled into a five-hour-long nap which took me almost all the way to Shanghai.

My flight arrived at 05:15, or so, Shanghai time.  I made my way through passport control relatively swiftly and grabbed my bag.  Liz had arranged airport transportation for me beforehand so I was able to make my way to her home by 07:30.  Unfortunately, she was unable to be there because, as she had informed me a few weeks before, she was in Harbin (in northern China) for a sales conference sponsored by her current employer, Hershey.  Instead, I was met by her husband, Ethan, who suggested that I have a nap because I'd not rested enough on the flight.  I lay down on the mattress which is serving as bed and I awakened four hours (which seemed like ten minutes) later.  Ethan went to have a swim and I returned to sleep for another short nap -- this one was five hours long!

After Ethan returned, he helped me to register at the local police station (foreign nationals who do not stay in hotels must do so within 24 hours of arriving if they stay in a city, and within 72 hours if they stay in the countryside).  After that, we obtained a SIM card from China Unicom (due to a misunderstanding, I was unable to get China Mobile for its BlackBerry services, as I had requested).  Unfortunately, because of the lack of BB service, I have no access to the native Google Maps app for BB, and the native e-mail is unable to operate without BS service.  At least I should be able to communicate with my local contact by using SMS, right?

After that, Ethan and I went for dinner at one franchise of a local chain of chicken restaurants at the subway station closest to Liz's and Ethan's home.  Before retiring, I realised that I really should've brought a sweater with me because Shanghai is in the south, and apartments south of the Chang Jiang (长江) don't have central heating.