Live Blogging – Return From Shenzhen!

Ok, this is it folks, this here is pretty much the mustard right here, a live blog* of my return from Shenzhen

April 10th 2009

2:30pm – arrive at Shenzhen airport having finished early to try and change my 6:20 flight to Pudong to an earlier flight.

2:45pm – there’s nothing available, time for a foot massage

3:45pm – and an ice cream from KFC

4:00pm – check in using the new automatic check-in booths and make my way through security and to the gate ready for boarding at 5:50pm**

5:45pm – Almost everyone at the gate is queueing up by now in anticipation of boarding

5:55pm – an announcement along the lines of “the flight will be delayed because of bad weather in Shanghai”, I call H, the weather in Shanghai is glorious.

6:20pm – another announcement, the flight will be further delayed due to the ongoing bad weather (at this point every single person waiting has been up to the gate to ask when the flight will actually take off).

7:00pm – People take it in turns to hang around the gate desk pointing aggressively at the staff and shouting. It’s all in Chinese, I haven’t a clue what’s going on. The whole things go in waves, when someone gets particularly angry more people get up and join in and then eventually sit down again until someone else gets really angry, then they all get up again and point fingers accusingly, maybe I should join in.

7:30pm – Bottles of water and pepsi arrive at the gate, again we all surge forwards to get a drink, the girl behind the desk (who has already helped herself and is drinking from a bottle of water) tells us they are not available yet, we have to wait. They’re safe while they’re behind the desk but if any of them need the toilet I swear they’ll be torn to pieces by the mob before they make 3 metres. Rumours abound of the flight being too empty to take off, mechanical problems and financial problems at the airline.

7:45pm – A box of vouchers arrives, everyone rushes forward, myself included, they’re being snatched out of the girls hand quicker than she can get them out of the box, she quickly runs out, there’s not enough. The people who managed to get them look momentarily happy, then read them and look angry. I ask the girl what they are, “proof” she says, “proof of what?” I ask. “It says that the flight is late because of the weather”. Ah yes, of course, I forgot, I’m in China, food vouchers????? what was I thinking…

8:00pm – the monitor above the gate suddenly goes blank, suddenly the crowd are shouting, in the space of a few seconds they’ve gone from feverish to positively rabid, someone is banging his hand on the desk at the front, the girl says something and then everyone is shouting and pointing. I go round the side and ask her to explain in English “the flight is cancelled” she says, please go out to the departures hall to change your ticket”. I leave quickly and take a lost looking German businessman with me, he’s here on a business trip and speaks a few words of English but no Chinese, he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

8:10pm – arrive at the ticket desk, there’s already quite a crowd developing and they’re positively seething, I join the queue China style (go around to the edge of the crowd and lean across as far as possible waving my passport and ticket at the clerk, I swear it nearly touched his face at one point), I notice that the German guy is standing by himself, several metres away from the crowd, he looks like he’s witnessing a murder. I shout at him to give me his passport and ticket which he does and then retreats to a safe distance.

8:15pm – I manage to make my way across the crowd quickly as people get served and push back through the crowd until I’m right in front of the clerk with another westerner (who made his way from the opposite side), we’re both wildly thrusting our passports at the clerk but mine gets picked first, I later find the guy is Parisian, I congratulate myself, if I’m beating Parisians I’m doing well! There are no more flights tonight, we’re on the first flight in the morning on a different airline “Go to desk number 7 immediately” the clerk tells me “you will check in now and then pick up your boarding pass tomorrow morning”, he hands me a paper ticket, he’s put myself and the German on the same ticket, meaning that from this point on we’re not leaving each other’s sight until morning. I show him the ticket, his eyes open in surprise when he sees both our names on it, I tell him he can keep hold of the ticket which eases him slightly.

8:20pm – we arrive at desk 7 at the same time as the French guy and attempt to check in, the girl looks confused and starts making phone calls, she has acne, after consideration I decide I definitely wouldn’t make jiggy jiggy share an ice cream with her. She doesn’t know anything about the flight cancellation or why we are trying to check in, I try to explain but her English is poor so I call H, I want to know what the hand written bit of paper we have means, is our flight confirmed? are we on standby? She leads us over to the same airline desk we were at 10 minutes ago (where the crowd is even bigger now) we argue with her for a minute before she suddenly waves her hands at us, turns around and runs away.

8:40pm – The French guy (let’s just call him Pierre for the sake of argument, he never told me his name) has got through to the airline on his mobile phone and confirms that our names are confirmed on the flight for tomorrow morning, we can breathe easily for a while. Now to find out about accomodation, the guy at the airline desk points off to one side when I ask, we see nothing there and then he ignores our further questions, we decide to just find our own hotel (not a bad option, last time this happened to me the airline put me in a terrible place and expected me to share a room with a complete stranger).

9:00pm – “the hotel shuttle buses are on the arrivals level” someone tells us, we go downstairs to find nothing, “no, no, they are upstairs at departures” an official tells us, up we go, nothing again “they’re next to the taxis downstairs”, “no, they’re outside departures”, we give up and start walking towards the hotels we can see opposite the terminal.

9:01pm – christ this is going on a bit isn’t it, I might have to chop some out.

9:15pm – they were a bit further than we thought, we’re just about to hand over our passports and ask for a room when I notice a couple of guys from our flight hanging around the check-in desk (I’d recognise that white polo shirt with multicoloured golf tee print anywhere), looking behind the check-in desk I see a pile of tickets like ours, we hand ours over saying we needed 3 separate rooms, they give us room tickets, no questions asked, Yay, free hotel rooms! “your shuttle bus will leave at 7am” the girl tells us, “that’s too late” we say “we have to check in before 7, our flight is at 8″, “no, no, it will be fine” she says, “it is the airline arrangement” she says, “can you absolutely guarantee it will be ok?” I say, “yes, yes, the bus will leave at 7 and it will be fine”.

9:30pm – myself, Klaus and Pierre (an unlikely trio!) meet to chat over food and beer. I find that Pierre is a trader in sports equipment and that Klaus is an engineer, he was only visiting Shanghai for one night for dinner with a customer and a morning meeting, he has a return flight to Shenzhen tomorrow to catch his return flight to Germany.

11th April 2009

6:10am – I’m just getting up and getting ready for a shower when the phone rings “this is your wake up call” the voice says, “please check out in ten minutes, your bus will leave at 6:30″. I start to say that the bus should be at 7 and then don’t bother….

6:45am – Back at the airport (this really goes on doesn’t it) it took an age to check in and finally we’re given boarding passes for our original flight (not the one they changed us to), it seems they’re going to try again with the original flight.

7:30am – boarding time, everyone is queuing up waiting for boarding but nothing happens.

7:40am – the baying mob reappears demanding to know when the flight will leave, the only answer we can get is “we don’t know, there is no departure time yet”, the crowd wants blood..

8:00am – the departure board suddenly changed to etd:9:00, another surge, much waving of fingers, screaming and war faces. “You will board at 8:20 and leave at 9, we guarantee it!!”

The baying mob between surges, the guy with glasses at the front got most of the blame, it’s all his fault

8:20am – the free bottles of water arrive and they start handing them out, the baying mob is back again, one man in particular is livid, he shouts at the staff then turns away, looks around, walks over to the queuing fence and pushes a post over before going back to his seat to sulk, BREAKING THE LAW! BREAKING THE LAW…..

8:25am – a fuel truck arrives at the plane and within seconds we’re boarding, was this what we had been waiting for? had this all been about money after all?

8:50am – we’ve been on the flight for 25 minutes when the first announcement comes, the flight will be further delayed due to “air traffic control”, no departure time. I’m suspecting they boarded us to calm everyone down, there’s not a whisper during the announcement. As if things weren’t bad enough the TV screens come down and they start blasting us with Les Dennis, WHY BABY JESUS WHY?????

9:00am – they’re starting to hand out breakfast, this doesn’t look good

9:45am – flight actually takes off***

11:45am – flight begins to circle shanghai, an announcement states “due to congestion at shanghai airport….” I slump in my seat losing the will to live.

12:15am – we actually touch ground and taxi to the furthest possible stand from the exit, at least we’re not on a bus.

12:30am – We reach the luggage belt at 12:30 having walked an age from the gate (I swear it must be 1km if not 5), I say my goodbyes to Klaus and Pierre and leave them waiting next to the empty turntable, I’m tempted to wait and see if the luggage is delayed but I desperately need a shower, I’m positively humming. Klaus will be checking in for his return to shenzhen in 2 hours and is desperately calling his customers to see if they can come to the airport for a quick chat, this is the worst day of his life.

1:15pm – finally arrive home almost 24 hours after arriving at Shenzhen airport, it feels more like 2 weeks.

* – live according to ISO 45873-8:2008 – Blogs – Live Blogging in China and section 2 of ASTM 27435:2 – Writing a Live Blog (but not sections 1 and 3)

** – to be honest I kind of filled these bits in later

*** – actually none of this is live in the true sense of the word.