Today was going to be a long day due to the lateness of our flight back home. We had grand plans of leaving our bags at the airport and then catching the train back into Shanghai and spending the day there before heading back to the airport in the evening. This did not happen. More on that later...
There was a big delay getting off the ship. We had a late debark time which meant we could have a relaxing morning before facing the lovely customs people both at the port and at the airport. We didn't mind having to wait longer than expected to get off the ship as we weren't in any rush to get to the airport.
Once we finally got off the ship we had more queues and waiting in the terminal. The Chinese take security very seriously. Fingerprints were scanned once again and passports checked numerous times. Finally making it through we found our suitcases no problem and headed for the taxis in the hope of being able to explain where we wanted to go, Pudong Airport terminal 1. We got a taxi easy enough but trying to tell the driver where we wanted to go was another story. I used my phones translate app but for the first 30 mins we thought for sure we were going the wrong way (not that we had any idea where the airport was!). We weren't, the driver knew where he was going :-)
At the airport we ran into people from our tour which was to be expected since we were all flying back home today and there aren't too many flights. They'd gone to terminal 2 so had to catch the shuttle to terminal 1. As we were at the airport so early we couldn't check in so, as mentioned, had planned on leaving our bags in storage. Nope, this wasn't going to happen. There was some sort of expo on so the storage facility was closed starting from 8am today due to 'security issues'. What ever that meant. Bugger. This meant we were stuck with our bags until check in at 5pm. We were given quite a few different times but it ended up being about 5. I did try and see if we could get an earlier flight, we could but it would cost us $800 each, no thanks.
I had planned that once we dropped our suitcases off we'd catch the Maglev train into Shanghai. The Maglev is a super speedy train from the airport to Shanghai that runs on a magnetic track, so have the time it's hovering above the tracks! We decided we'd still catch it and just drag our bags along with us, not fun at all and the train only got up to 300km/hr instead of the 400km/hr it's meant to. What a jip!
After dragging around our bags and going through all the scans and security checks getting on and off the train I'd had enough. I bought some lunch from a super busy place, sort of like a bakery, and we caught the Maglev back to the airport. I also bought a can of beer for dad but in the end this got taken off me a the very last check we went through. We'd been through about 5 before this so don't know why suddenly I couldn't take it and my two tiny cans of coke. Disappointing and annoying.
The time dragged on and on at the airport. We did fill in a little bit of time by having a yummy dinner using the very last of our yuan. We had to calculate what we could afford before ordering, didn't want to embarrass ourselves by not having enough yuan when everything was so cheap.
The airport is massive, as you would expect, but there weren't many people at all. I thought it would have been so much busier.
Our plane was on time so that was good we definitely didn't need a delay when we'd been at the airport for hours and hours already. The flight was loooong and uncomfortable. I seriously do not know how tall people go! Dinner was served as soon as we reached flying altitude, it was 1am in the morning, who wants food now. Many people apparently, the lady next to mum also got a glass of wine. That's the last thing I wanted I just wanted to sleep. Not going to happen. Breakfast was served a few hours before we arrived back in Sydney. A very well cooked egg, shouldv'e gone with the Chinese brekky, noodles.
After finally making it to Sydney and getting through customs (such a breeze compared to China) we had to get a transfer over to the domestic airport for our flight to Port Macquarie. One good thing was we could check in and leave our suitcases so didn't have to drag them over to the domestic terminal. Next time we'd see them was Port Mac airport.
We had a little bit of a wait but only about 1 1/2 hours so not too bad. We left on time, had a cuppa tea and nibblie things, and arrived in Port Macq right on time. Dad was there to pick us up so once we got our suitcases we were in the car and home, well mum and dads home. What a looooong day. A shower was definitely needed before a nice glass of wine. Dinner wasn't far behind and then straight to bed. we were tired.
What an amazing trip we had. We didn't know what to expect and were both pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed our trip. We were both over the bus and the airports but what we did and saw definitely out weighed any negatives we had. China is certainly a very different place to Australia as are the people. We learnt that you need to just accept that Chinese do not queue or have personal space so just 'elbows out' and go. I found this hard to deal with at times but you gradually get use to it.
I would highly recommend doing a trip to China especially when the trips on offer at the moment are so cheap it is so worth the money. Value for money that is for sure. The quality of our hotels where top notch even if the locations may not have been the most central and the food, so cheap and, for the most part, so yummy. We'd go back just for the food!
I'm not sure if I would do a bus trip again but never say never. The cruise was awesome as always but to be able to go to Japan was something I hadn't ever thought I'd do especially on a fabulous ship. I would love to go back to Japan and see more of it especially Tokyo as I wasn't that impressed with it but have heard how amazing it is so obviously I missed a lot of it. We were only there for a few hours!
Where to next???
