Shanghai Shanghai

It’s my third day in Shanghai and I’m already anticipating a sad goodbye in a couple days. Although I was fully aware that Shanghai is a big city, I had no idea of its massive size and the amount of things to do in this city. I’ve met many many fantastic people and have had the most amazing time the last few days. I’ve been told by many that the people here are ill-mannered and rude but for the most part, the locals have been super nice and very helpful.

A Much Needed Vacation

As I write this blog, the Pacific Ocean is slowly crossing below me. It’s my first trip in over a year, and it is a much needed one. School has pretty much absorbed most of my life the last year and I breathe a sigh of relief to be finally, finally done with my studies. I am making my way to Hong Kong where I will be taking a connecting flight to Shanghai. Fortunately, it has been pretty smooth landing a flight considering I am flying standby during one of the busiest times of the year. There were many doubts that this trip would even happen after reviewing the available seats on the planes and I had many stressful moments. I am crossing my fingers that I can successfully get on my other flights coming up in the next couple of weeks.

For some reason, travel is never easy for me. Almost every time I go on or plan a trip, some disaster strikes. Big disasters. Like the time I went to Toronto for a few days. It was a rather uneventful trip and I cannot say that I had that great of a time there. But it was while on this trip that an internationally shocking event occurred. It happened the morning I was leaving Toronto. As my ex-boyfriend and I made our way to the terminal, hunger struck hard and I decided to brave the long line-up at Harvey’s that we had just passed to grab a bite. I got there to realize that there was no line-up at all, the small crowd had gathered to watch the television screen mounted in front of the fast food joint. They were an intense crowd and I was too hungry to be curious of the program that was on. When my ex-boyfriend asked what they were watching, all I remember was there were buildings on fire. That was the morning of September 11, 2001. We never got to leave that day. The airport quickly filled with chaos and confusion as all the American flights grounded in Canada. By this time all the television sets were turned off and nobody knew why they were stuck in Toronto. We had to wait a few days before the airport opened again and I thought we’d never get out with our standby tickets. But we got on a plane on our first try out.

The following years, I attempted to make many trips and cancelled many due to bombings (Bali) and tsunamis (Thailand). When I finally made my way to Thailand a few years later, our destination island was flooded and we had to change locations. I took a trip to Europe a couple years ago, a short backpacking trip filled with near missed flights, more bombings and damaging weather phenomenons. The day I landed in London, somebody decided to drive into the Glasgow airport with a bomb, which promptly shut down the other airports in the UK. Thankfully, my flight to Paris the next morning left without a hitch…after I spent the entire night online making sure the airports were to open up again. On my way home on that same trip, I found myself in London once again. It rained a lot in Europe that July and there were a few showers while I was in London, but not enough to have caused the flood that shut down 2 metro stations (on my way to the airport) and halted the train to Heathrow, I didn’t think anyways. It was another case of mad dash to the terminal with obstacles of big crowds, long lineups and stubborn securities. I snuck pass the guard into the front of the lineup and made it in time to catch the delayed flight home.

God, I do a lot of running when I’m trying to get to an airport. I’ve probably ran through at least 5 international airports. But if I’ve learned anything on my travels it’s that no matter the situations that arises I seem to make it through ok. So I need to remember there is no need to stress, it’ll all be ok.
But a word of advice, don’t plan your trip the same time as mine.

*Update* – I come home just days after the attempted bombing of an American flight from Amsterdam.  Traveling on any flights headed towards the US turned to hell.  My going on any trip may be bad luck to all other travelers.