Shanghai, shopper's paradise but humid as hell

HGirl arrived in Shanghai after a 2 hour bus ride from Suzhou to the airport and a 30 minute cab ride from the airport to the hotel. Still reeling from her cold, she checked in, ate lunch and collapsed into bed with the intention of waking up two hours later. Fast forward 12 hours and she is up at the crack of dawn, having slept through the night.

Friday morning, after breakfast with the WORST coffee in the world, she headed to one of the main shopping districts: East Nanjing Road. This area is wall to wall malls, little shops and restaurants.

And naturally, HGirl made the most of it and did not come home empty handed.

A note on business cards in China

In the US, business cards are given casually and sometimes aren't given ot at all. Not so in China. In fact, there is a small ritual about handing over a business card. It is handed over with two hands, thumbs on top. It is also received with two hands.

Live and learn

Chinese banquets, medicine & hospitality

Today was a big work day for HGirl. She had to be on. After some brief planning meetings, HGirl joined her colleagues for a Chinese lunch. She is sure this was not the way people typically lunch, because there was so much food. There were about 15 to 20 courses, with the last two courses being noodles and then fruit.

HGirl had been sneezing all day and was beginning to feel awful. Of all the meds she brought with her (cipro, diflucan, ambien, scopolamine, paracetamol, Imodium, pepto) she didn’t bring any cold medicine. So the country expert (a wonderful woman from Australia that HGirl had met in Tanzania) took her up stairs to the hotel shop for some Chinese medicine. Now, again Big C, we know HGirl gives you a hard time about the homeopathic stuff…. But she was desparate. Anyways, the country expert hooked HGirl up with some herbal caplets with Ganmaoling & Jiaonang. Don’t ask, b/c HGirl doesn’t know. But it seems to be helping a bit.

After lunch, HGirl and colleagues had a meeting with the deputy major of the city. She had to do her presentation again. Then they met with the local public health and academic folks.

All this was followed by another banquet, this time with even more dishes. Before you can say anything, Big C, yes HGirl was adventurous. There was stinky tofu, eel (kinda good once she got over the appearance), jelly fish (it looked like cabbage, HGirl asked what it was after she ate it), something HGirl thinks was sea cucumber (but who knows). There were losts of toasts with rice wine (kinda good). After the dinner, they were presented with gifts and headed out for some shopping.

The shopping was great. The exchange rate is about ¥7.6 to the dollar. So HGirl got fans a purses. Now its off to bed to take care of the cold.

Peace!

18 hours in Beijing

After a lovely night’s sleep, a couple of great showers, and 2 espressos with cream HGirl was off and running. First stop was the Ministry of Health to meet with the Division Chief of the Patriotic Health Campaign Committee and the Senior Consultant of the Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention. The meeting went well.

After a North Indian/Pakistani buffet, HGirl went to the WHO’s regional office and met with some WHO folks and researches. This is where she gave her presentation. It went pretty well.

At this point, HGirl hit a wall. She was SO tired. But she had to go back to the airport to catch a flight to Shanghai. Think there was travel drama? Who are you talking too? Of course there was. This time it was minor: approximately 1 hour delay.

HGirl fell asleep on the plane. About ½ way thru, she was awoken by snoring. She glanced around and realized she couldn’t tell if it was her or someone else.

Upon landing at 11pm, HGirl and the rest of the WHO team piled in a van and drove two hours to Suzhou. HGirl was starving as she only had espresso, lunch and a smoothy-type drink that was mostly water. She was planning on room service at the hotel, but no such luck. Ah well, at least there was bottled water in the room.

Ah (sputter, cough) Beijing

HGirl is finally in China. The flight from NYC was delayed 6 hours. So, instead of getting at 6p, she got in after midnight.

Customs & immigration was unexpectedly stress free. They didn’t even take HGirl’s customs form. The taxi queue went pretty quickly too. The taxi driver didn’t speak English but kept talking to her. HGirl was really confused, but he kept pointing at the meter and showing 3 fingers. She thought he wanted to triple the meter, so she didn’t try to hard understand him.

But, she got to the hotel . She gave him a generous tip, and he seemed fine with that. So hopefully she didn’t do too bad.

The hotel room was great, but the beds were SO hard. After some room service, HGirl was off to bed. All she has seen of Beijing is the airport (very clean and modern) and outside her hotel window (hazy, lots of construction, lots of high rises – must be getting ready for the 2008 Olympics).

HGirl has bad travel karma this week...

HGirl is off again on yet another adventure. This time China!

The Supershuttle drops HGirl off at JFK 4 hours before the flight. She gets in line to check in only to find out the flight has been delayed!!! Can you believe the fucking airport drama?!?!? HGirl’s travel karma is off.

The Air China reps say it is due to a volcano. Have you ever heard of a delay in NYC to Beijing for a VOLCANO??? As best as HGirl can figure, it is likely to be Kilauaea on the Big Island of Hawaii. It started getting real active on June 17. Or, it could be a load of bullshit. She is not quite sure.

Someone pissed of Pele (the goddess of fire). Probably haoles taking volcano rocks. Malama da aina people.

At least Air China gave a $10 meal voucher. It was enough for a plate of bad Chinese buffet (Wok & Roll – who comes ups with this shit).

At least HGirl can work on her slides…. But she has to give a talk to the ministry of health on Monday morning. There is a good chance that she could get in at 1 am Monday morning. This is going to be a marathon trip until she gets to Hawaii.

So, she is due to fly at 9pm (instead of 430pm). Fingers crossed that she goes.

Air Canada Sucks! Typical HGirl travel Drama

HGirl left Quebec on Thursday for NYC. She anticipated a stress free journey because her flights up had been so pleasant. But, as Big C said, “I expect HGirl to have travel drama every other trip.” Thanks Big C.

Everything started off ok. Hgirl got on an earlier flight to Montreal, and her flight from Montreal to Toronto went fine (never mind that she had two plane changes to get from Quebec to NYC – how crazy is that?).

Then Toronto. The plane loads and all is well. About 30 minutes after loading, the passengers are told that LaGuardia has a ground control in effect. To make a long story short, HGirl was stuck on the tarmac for almost 4 hours. And they kept shutting off the entertainment system when they thought we were going to take off, so she never got to finish her movie (Wild Hogs – very little choice, so no judgments please). Anyways, after 4 hours, Air Canada gave up. Apparently there was bad weather in NYC.

So HGirl gets a hotel room at 50% off (that’s it because it was a nature issue). She can only get on the 930 am flight. The Air Canada staff were completely unhelpful. Someone was supposed to meet us in baggage claim. No one showed. One of the desk flks screamed at an irate passenger.

Fast forward to the morning. HGirl tries to get on an earlier flight, but they are all full. They load up again, but are again delayed. Some lady passed out unconscious and delayed the flight.

Air Canada sucks.

Summary:
Hours delayed: 18
Times through Canadian border control: 2
Times through US customs: 2
Extra passport stamps: 1 (Canada wouldn’t give another one)
Additional expense: $100 (room + dinner)

HIV, long nails & dietary restrictions

Today was relatively quiet for Hgirl. It was the first day of the conference, a day of sitting in sessions and catching up with friends & colleagues.

Anthony Fauci (Director of National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease) gave a talk on HIV in 2007. A sobering topic in general, but he was a great speaker. For those of you who are not immersed in the HIV world, here are some points from Fauci's talk that you might find ineresting:

• Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of cases of HIV (over 24 million), but just over 2 million are on anti-retroviral therapy.
• 1.1 million people in the US have HIV, 25% of which don't know they have it.
• 65% of HIV infections are transmitted by people who don't know they are infected.
• In the US, the African American community is experiencing a large number of new infections.

Over all the conference was interesting today.

On a lighter note, Hgirl & Prof SW chatted with a man that had long nails (and she means long... like maybe half an inch or longer). It wasn't just a long pinky nail (which always makes HGirl wonder how the nose candy is), but a full set of 10 long nails. And then he talked with his hands. Prof SW says they weren't clean either. EWWWW

HGirl & Prof SW went to dinner with the Salsa Queen and PE Chair (PEC). This is where the dietary restrictions get challenging. One person did not eat milk or dairy products or meat (seafood only). Another person could not eat gluten. So where did they go? Petit Chateau. And what did they serve? Fondue & crepes. So three of us had cheese and beef fondue, with the gluten free party not eating the bread (she ordered a potato and the first one that came to the bed was rotten). The seafood only person had a shrimp & asparagus crepe with not bechamel sauce and a side of marinara (which didn't really work with the whole crepe thing). But we all came together on a nice chardonnay and the chocolate fondue with fruit. The company was better than the food.

Arrival in Quebec

Allo mes amis! Hgirl is on the road again. She arrived this afternoon in Quebec City, a charming town along the St. Laurence River. She will be attending the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) Annual Meeting (yes, we know it is a bit geeky). For once, we have very little drama to report.

Montreal airport sucked. HGirl went through customs and got entirely confused as to where to recheck her luggage. With 2 roly bags and a cardboard tube (with her poster for the conference), she went up the escalator and spent about 15 minutes staring dumbfounded at the USA departures desk, vainly looking for the inter-Canada desk.

A completely useless airport info guy pointed her in the direction of the stair (WITH TWO BAGS AND A TUBE) and told her she had to go back down to customs. At customs, a more helpful man said she needed to go back up to Air Canada. Back up the escalator. Really f'ing confusing man.

All basically went well after that, with the exception of the unfortunate Quebec airport bathroom incident - passport in back pocket, use toilet, pull up pants, passport falls in toilet. Voila. HGirl in full effect.

Anyways, arrives in one piece at Quebec airport only to be driven to the hotel by a man who insisted on looking at her (AND NOT THE ROAD) while talking. At least he was nice and helpful. HGirl is staying with her long time CPDD roommate, Professor Social Work (Prof SW). Their room overlooks the pool. Now the last time HGirl & Prof SW were in Quebec, it was wet & chilly. Indeed, recent weather forecasts suggested a similar climate this time around. Except it is hot as crap hereto day and neither woman brought a bathing suit.

This entry represents the first day of a month of travel for Hgirl. June 16-21 she is in Quebec. On June 21 she flies back to NYC only to leave on June 23 for China. She will be in Beijing June 24-25, Suzhou June 25-28, and Shanghai June 28-July 1. July 1 she leaves for Hawaii and will be there until July 16, returning to NYC on the 17th (her birthday for anyone who has read this far).