Fahrenheit) with the wind chill and I managed to be there for at least two wicked blizzards, a couple of days of melting, and mostly more than minus 20˚ for the rest of the time. Good old Saskatchewan winter!!I did enjoy visiting with friends and family while I was back. I ended up staying a little longer than I anticipated, but it was all good.
I was able to attend an uncle’s birthday party, and I had many lunches, breakfasts and suppers with friends and family. I had plenty of time to get my Chinese visa and arrange my travel, as well as take care of doing my income tax, and tying up some loose ends I hadn’t been able to do before I’d left in the fall. I managed to see the Andy Warhol art show at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, but it paled compared to the huge show of his that I saw in a gallery in Madrid.
Most importantly, while I was home, I was able to visit with my son and help him as he recovered from his hip operation, which left him on crutches for a month and unable to too much in the way of regular household things we take for granted like cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and things as simple as carrying a glass of water from the tap to the table. He’s well on the road to healing now and I feel much more at peace about his well-being, independence, and mobility.I was thankful to have a wonderful home to stay in and a vehicle to drive, courtesy of my parents, who left after a couple of days of my arrival for their usual winter get away to Mesa, Arizona.
As the winter raged on, I was happy to learn I was to leave on February 21st. However, shortly after I returned to Regina, I learned that Guangzhou, where I will live and teach for at least three months, had just had freakish bad weather. They had been deluged by a snow storm the likes of which they hadn’t seen in 50 years. This created havoc for their Chinese New Year’s holiday with power outages, train stoppages, etc. with over 900,000 people being stranded. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gPjnARYVGDWd5JvFrRF7nZsqqk1A
I was no stranger to that type of weather and planned appropriately, though thankful that the weather has improved there considerably since then.
I was happy to leave on February 21st. My flight took me to Vancouver early in the morning, with only a two hour wait before connecting to my Shanghai flight. The Jazz flight from Regina was one of the most cramped I've ever been on; little room to manoeuvre in any direction. Luckily, I was tired from having little sleep the night before, so I conked out and didn't wake again until the landing gear hit the runway in Vancouver two and a half hours later.The Vancouver airport has certainly grown since I was last in it and taking an international
flight....I must have walked halfway to Victoria from the unloading gate to the boarding gate. While waiting in the boarding lounge, a greeter/hostess approached me offering a choice of free handouts from a basket of candies, pens, and little packages of Kleenex. She asked if I was a teacher. I asked how she knew; she answered, "You look like one." So at least I look the part to someone!
Our route was quite interesting, hugging the coasts up and around northern Canada across the Bering Straight, down the coast of Russia towards China. I wondered why we didn't just fly straight across the Pacific Ocean, it would have been much shorter, but when I looked for a map and saw the wind currents (http://www.worldbook.com/wb/media?id=mp000979), I realized they probably would have made little headway. Besides, if they had difficulty they were always close to land.
We left a little late as the plane had taken on more cargo and then had to add more fuel. Still we arrived early, around 4:00 pm Friday afternoon Chinese time. Apparently there is a difference of 14 hours between Regina time and Guangzhou time. They are ahead of Canada, so I believe I am arriving about 2:00 am Friday, Feb 22 Regina time. All went, smoothly on the international flight, though movies and shows provided in-flight left quite a bit to be desired (old movies and documentaries, like on Wayne Gretzky, although they did have a short clip of Canadian musician Feist). I didn't even plug in my head phones until I recognized her, but by the time I got everything untangled, plugged in and volume up, her song was over.
The food was reasonably good with a 
Chinese flair. Lunch was a choice between a chicken and noodle meal or sweet & sour pork with rice (also a bun, carrot salad, and a berry desert of some kind). Supper was a choice between teriyaki beef with noodles or chicken with rice (and the same cold little bun and butter and a fruit salad). They also served Chinese tea, which was quite delicious. (No coffee, though they could make some if there was a specific request.). An hour or so before we landed they also brought us a heated noodle cup with chopsticks of course. (All meals were served with both chopsticks and regular plastic utensils.)
Chinese flair. Lunch was a choice between a chicken and noodle meal or sweet & sour pork with rice (also a bun, carrot salad, and a berry desert of some kind). Supper was a choice between teriyaki beef with noodles or chicken with rice (and the same cold little bun and butter and a fruit salad). They also served Chinese tea, which was quite delicious. (No coffee, though they could make some if there was a specific request.). An hour or so before we landed they also brought us a heated noodle cup with chopsticks of course. (All meals were served with both chopsticks and regular plastic utensils.) The best part of the whole flight was that I had an aisle seat in the middle section (which was three seats across) and the fellow on the opposite aisle seat left, so I had the entire section to myself. I was able to stretch out and sleep as much as I wanted...only waking when they prodded me for meals.
The flight altitude was 10,972 m (3,600 feet) and sometimes higher than 15,000m with a ground speed 477 m/hr or 786 km/hour.
The Shanghai Airport was an incredible structure, wish I'd taken photos, but I'll have to get them when I leave. Shaped sort of like a number of pagodas strung together, they also have lovely garden areas and the most incredible long walk to the baggage area...and I thought Vancouver's walk was long....
I’ll be in Shanghai for about nine days and then relocating to the city of Guangzhou, which is in Guangdong Province in the southern part of the People’s Republic of China.
Shanghai Info: www.archersdirect.co.uk/china_shanghai.php. For more information on both locations, please go to the First Impressions of Shanghai and Info on Guangzhou blogs when they are published.
It will take a while to get my first impressions of Shanghai up as it has been an incredible culture shock…… and I want to record everything I encountered as it was so amazing…..
