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Fried Rice

Clay Pot Fish

Chicken and Fried Dough with Chilli

Roasted Pork and Pork Gizzard

Video of the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant.

I am finally here in Mongolia, arriving 24 hours later then I had planned. There was a delay in my flight from Shanghai to Beijing, and though the delay was due to bad weather and therefore not the fault of the airline in anyway, the way they handled the entire escapade left an utterly bitter taste and a new found content for the China Eastern.

Oh, I am having problems accessing flckr, and thus I will update this post with photo’s later on.

It was 9:20pm on the 24th of May 2006, and I was boaring my flight from Shanghai to Beijing at Pudong International Airport. The flight, a mere 2 hour hop was suppose to be routine and uneventful, but all that could go wrong did. I bring you a play by play of what happend, and a video as well, which I will also upload from my apartment later today.

09:20pm : We board the plane, I find myself seated by the window, in a small Boing 737-200. I place my things away, and start to pick up reading where I left off on my Tom Clancy Novel, “Debt of Honour”.

0:950pm : I had expected us to be on the tarmac by now, taxing to the runway, but alas we are still connected to the main terminal building. I pay it no attention and get back to my reading. The passanger at the end of my row, closes his eyes to sleep.

10:30pm : My legs get numb, and I realize we still have not taken off. There were no announcements, and so I asked the air-stewardess what was going on. Bad weather on-route she replies and within a few minutes there was an announcement.

11:10pm : A good fourty minutes had passed, and we were still exactly where we had been for the last hour. They start to serve us limited supply of water and a packet of cookies each. An announcement about the weather soon followed and it was the same. We were to wait and see.

11:50pm : My flight was suppose to have arrived at Beijing by now! We are still where we were! Connected to the terminal. People are upset and I ask the air-stewardess whats the plan? How long are we gonna wait here to decided if we are gonna fly? She doesn’t have an awnser. I then ask her, “Surely there is a plan. What if the storm last all night, are we gonna just sit on the plane all night?”. Again she doesn’t awnser.

12:30am : They air-stewardess finally makes an announcement, in English only, as the English speaking tourist have been asking more questions. The announcemt gave us a choice. We were to decided what we wanted to do, wait on the plane or wait in the terminal. One of the Chinese passanger was very angry that the annoucement was only made in English and started shouting. This shouting and anger would last a very long time, as I later found out.

1:00am : “Have you made your desiccion yet?”, the air-stewardess asks us, and I told her plainly. “How do you expect the passangers to decide? They all want different things. Some want to eat dinner, some want to sleep on the plane, it was impossible I told her.

1:30am : An announcemt made finally. We are to get off the plane and continue to wait in the terminal where food and drinks are to greet us. We all get off the plane, and to our shock and horrow, the terminal was empty. Not a soul in sight, and the ground crew also dissapeared. When we finally thought to check, we found that the gate was locked, the flight crew was no where to be seen. Preplexed some tried to walk around and could not find a single open counter or ground staff. Even the security personal were no where to be seen! We were in the domestic side of the airport afterall. Some of the people decided to call “911″ on thier mobile phone.

2:00am : Finally one ground staff appears. A meek girl, who when confronted by 180 angry passangers could say noting. We asked her to call the manager, arrange some food, some drinks, something and she just replied “I tried, nobody pick up the phone”. A few angry but calm forigners asked her some questions, and I helped to traslate for her, as her English was hopelss. The loud chinamen was very angry and shouted very loudly, he demaned to be let back on the plane and even pulled the hand of the poor girl. She dissapeard down the restricted zone, not to bee seen for a while more.

2:45pm : A policemen arrives, and finally the girl ground staff reapears. The loud chinamen laments angrily to the policemen, and he informs us Management is on thier way. During this process I have made friends with a few people, like Dave, a business man from the US, and a family of Chinese Filipinos. I look outside and I see the plane is just sitting there, lights turned off, and no longer connected to the terminal.

3:15pm : Finally some management arrives. We all take turns complaining and arguing and making some demands. Most just wanted some refreshments, hot tea and possibly blankets. There was a large tour group from England, most of which were elderly and to sleep on cold metal chairs in this tempreture was not wise. He promissed us that that would arrive soon. We asked them if we were to fly soon, and they told us that if the weather improved we would fly straight away.

3:30pm : Blankets arrive, cans of coke and cookies followed. Those with connecting flights made arrangements to change them. Our greatest complain was that we were lied to when we left the plane , nobody was there to greet us from the airlines and that there were no groundstaff to speak off at all. Manager promissed us that the groundstaff would be here all through the night with us, more lies. The loud chinaman drafts a complain letter and some people sign it. We asked that the business lounge be opend up, at least there was hot tea and comfortable seats for us there, but we were declined saying “Who will clean up and replenish thier supplies for the business passangers in the morning?”.

3:45pm : Finally we are told that the earliest we will fly out is tomorrow at 6:00am. We were told that busses are here to take us to the hotel where we would be informed if the weather cleared by then. We were pissed and angry to find out the pilots actually already left at 1:30am when we got of the plane. There was no chance of us leaving at all except in the morning, but this was not informed. Nobody wanted to take the hotel as if we really left at 6am, it was only 2 hours away, and we had waited this long already.

4:00am : The ground staff dissapears not to be seen again till much later. Most of us just sleep for a few hours, as I did.

5:40am : We were suppsose to leave soon, but no ground crew is in sight. There is no update on our depature time on the flight board. We learn of another flight to Beijing also by the same airlines which was suppose to leave an hour before us. They had the exact same sequence of events happen to them, only 1 hour ahead of us. This means thier passanger already in the terminal and the crew already called it quits at 12am, while we were still in our seats!

6:15am : Ground crew arrive, 3 of them, and a Angry crowd shouts at them. I ask them if my connecting flight was changed and they checked and said it was. I have been lied to, too many times to believe them though. The aircrew soon arrive and they stand outside, unable to board the plane as well. I overhear somebody saying they didn’t have the keys to the machine that connects the plane to the terminal.

6:45am : The crew finally board the plane, and we see a truck come to replinish the supplies and a cleaning crew board the plane. I ask them about the weather on-route. Will we board the plane and sit there for another 2 hours? Has the storm cleared? The ground crew didn’t know, and said “Probably not.”. At this I replied, “Thats not the anwser I wanted!”.

7:15am : We are finally allowed to board the plane. We all sit down, and excitedly I wait with the knowladge soon I would be in Beijing, but when it rains, it pours.

7:45am : Still connected to the building and we were not informed what was wrong. Finally after our compliants an annoucement says there are more passangers on the plane then the manifest they had. It takes them another 30 minutes to reslove this and finally we leave the plane.

9:00am : In the air, I fall sleep and when I wake up, somebody told me that the loud chinamen stood infront of everyone and made a speach and allot of people clapped. I didn’t hear the speach, so I don’t know its contents.

9:50am : We finally land, to everybody’s excitement, and I hear the loud chinaman shout in Mandrin, “Don’t get off the plane till our demands are met”. Apparently they wanted RMB 500 form the airlines for each passanger or something like that. All the foriegners got off the plane, and a few chinese, but most just sat there. I left and never saw them again, not even at the baggage collection.

I then went to get my ticket to Mongolia changed, only to find out the groud staff was not lying to me. Thank goodness for some truth. I got hotel near the airport and called my friend James who works in Beijing where I had lunch with him and visit Tianamin Square. More tomorrow.

Here is a video recorded during my Video Cruise.

Yes, I am at this monent in a plane, flying from Pudong International Airport to Capital Airport Beijing. I will only be in Beijing a couple of hours, before I catch my connecting flight to UlaanBator , Mongolia. The adventure starts again! Goodbye Shanghai, I will miss you! It’s not a bad place for a short term assignment, and I wouldn’t mind working there for say 6 months. Not forever though, as I would go crazy missing my curry for too long.