IMR: Entries: 2001: October: 15 — Monday, October 15, 2001

Crossing Over I'm pretty sure Oct. 12 was too early for me to be getting on a plane, especially given my feelings about air travel before Sept. 11.   Extensive check-in screening at the airport. HNL's somewhat modest "business center." The Honolulu airport from the air. The West Coast of the island of O`ahu. The beautiful blue Pacific Ocean. The Japanese countryside near Narita. Some funky building spotted on approach. The new mall at the Narita airport. What most airport's call a business center. Narita sports a great observation deck. Narita is one of the world's busier airports. Our hotel sends two vans and four staffers. Odd decorations for the APEC meetings. Shanghai's skyline after midnight. The street below my room window. And my hotel room. Note the Aeron Chair. The bath, my favorite, with a "rainforest shower." This sink outclasses me by a wide margin. But I made it back to Earth in surprisingly good shape, against all expectations, and I'm really beginning to believe I might be getting the hang of this whole travel thing. Especially considering that, for the first decade or so of my life, I just assumed that Hawaii was all anyone needed. And I thought that flying was simply unnatural. (I still do.) Leaving Honolulu was probably the most trying part of the trip, in fact. (Beyond having to get up at 3 a.m. to go to the office — but oversleeping instead.) I found myself feeling both frustrated at many of the new procedural security measures, and yet disappointed about the lack of real, actual security overall. Despite all the freeway signs to the contrary, our two cargo-laden vans were not stopped for search, nor were any other cars that morning. Although they were being especially meticulous at check in (creating a long line with a 45 minute wait), we weren't asked to open any of our six huge, black, frankly suspicious looking Rubbermaid footlockers. There was one National Guardsman posted at the X-ray station, but it was still manned by horribly unattentive, gossipy minimum-wage Filipino grandmothers. They limited access to the terminal area to people with tickets... but the Sept. 11 terrorist had tickets, you know? I was almost fooled at one point, when Elizabeth was stopped and asked to take a sip of her own bottle of water. But again, as we've learned, some of our attackers have no qualms about their own death if it can facilitate hundreds more. It didn't help that on that very morning, the FBI had gone out with warnings of a "credible threat" of attacks that very weekend. (I've never seen so many Hawaii visitors actually buying our local papers, albeit for the national news.) Even with a second check of all passports, our plane boarded and pushed back right on time. Elizabeth, Sylvia, Bernice, Roderick and I were on our way to Shanghai, "The Paris of Asia." I immediately knew my job had finally had a long-term affect on my psyche when the takeoff didn't rattle me at all. In fact, I enjoyed it, spotting island landmarks as we turned East and admiring the almost matching blue of the ocean and blue of the sky. Full albums by Enya and Cake were my primary companions on this trip, of course all in MP3s and on the same CD-RW I used on my last trip — meaning I had at my disposal nearly 40 hours of music for maybe 12 hours of travel time. Although I bought a book (The Devil's Code by John Sanford), intending to continue my tradition of devouring an entire novel on a single ocean-crossing flight, I never got beyond admiring the cover. Instead, I actually slept for a few hours. Then, I even watched the in-flight movie for the first time in ages: Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!" A surprising, delightful, only occasionally overwrought film. I know Jen (miss you!) would have loved it. I passed on the second feature — "Down to Earth." Crossing the international dateline, again another precious day in my life suddenly disappeared, and it was Saturday. We were spun at Narita and circled a while, but still landed a few minutes early. Absolutely refusing to spend our comparably short three-hour stopover in Narita's "Connections" terminal (it was originally two hours, but our original departure time to Shanghai was pushed back another hour), we decided to go through the whole ritual to cross into Japan. We were staying inside the airport, of course, but on the "other side," there were better restaurants, many more decent shops, and comfier chairs. There was also a great observation deck facing one of the main runways, and a little store selling nothing but airplanes — airplane models, balloons, trading cards, sweaters, keychains and more. I made a gleeful mental note to go back on my return trip to get something for Katie. We ate at a fairly decent restaurant, then wandered the "new" mall until it was time to cross back into hell. Our plane was already boarding when we got to the crowded gate, and soon enough we were on our way into the People's Republic of China. I only lightly dozed on this short, three-hour leg. Off and on I watched, without listening, to the in-flight feature, "Someone Like You." Without the sound, at least, it looked like a vapid montage of unnaturally shiny people to bounce around in tight clothes and making mountains out of their interpersonal molehills. When what's-her-face ended up with that guy instead of the other dude... I immediately forgot everything about the film and started reading PC Magazine. The landing at PVG (how that stands for "Shanghai" I'm not sure) was a little more wobbly than I would have preferred, but since we made it to the gate in one piece, I can't complain. Surprisingly, the quarantine, immigration and customs arrangements at the Shanghai airport were very pleasant and efficient (compared to Japan, and especially Honolulu). We passed through into a sea of giant advertisements for the APEC meetings and its assorted big-name corporate sponsors. It didn't take long to realize that this entire city was very obsessed with APEC, but at the same time, really really excited about the Olympic Games in 2008. The airport customs staff did stop us and harass us a bit, and the language barrier didn't help the very common confusion between APEC and PBEC. They even made us open one (of six) big giant bins. But at some point we finally crossed the "Stupid American Horizon" and they waved us through with frustrated sighs. The hotel had four sharply-dressed staffers waiting for us, and they loaded everything up in two snazzy Mercedes vans. We then started the 20 minute drive into Pudong, one of the business cores of Shanghai. Along the way, we were truly floored by the sheer scale of new construction that was going on. Everything was coming up at once, from a maze of wide highways to huge towers... it felt like a whole new city was coming up out of the ground. While APEC logos and advertising were very prominent, it was clear most of what we were seeing was in anticipation of the Games. It was very impressive. We got to the hotel, and were quickly sucked into the five-star service vortex upon which the St. Regis builds its reputation. Each of us — simple worker-bees — were nonetheless introduced to our Personal Butler™ (I got Amy, a bit of a newbie), who then took each of us straight to our room, where "check in" actually took place. I then got a tour of the room and its much touted features, from the Aeron Chair to the Bose Wave radio to the five-inch-thick down-filled comforter to the "rainforest" shower. I was told, basically, that anything was possible, from 24-hour free coffee and tea service to pressing and laundering to... all sorts of services a mere peon like me would actually have no time or use for. In fact, since I was mostly interested in getting to sleep, the level of service was a little unnerving. There was a ring at my door four more times even after Amy finished her tour, to bring fuzzy slippers, an Ethernet cable (!!!), a bowl of fruit, and (accidentally) a second pair of fuzzy slippers. And yet, as I would discover the next morning, Amy actually forgot to give me my room key, and I got locked out. At least we were warned in advance that the hotel and its staff were very very new. The building itself didn't open until July, and even today there are sections still getting the finishing touches. And our meeting is, by their admission and our sense, simply the very first "major event" this relatively small but niche-oriented hotel has ever handled. We're their guinea pigs, their training wheels, and we have yet to see if this will help or hurt the basic management of our small conference. (That is, they're almost too eager and they assign five people to do any task that one person would usually handle at "lesser hotels," but some simple matters of protocol are completely unknown to them.) My first night, though, I was mostly concerned about the famous shower and the big poofy comfy bed, and quickly exploited both.

Comments I'm glad that you made it there safely, and frankly, I'm thinking that with hotel rooms like that we're going to have to consider a trip to Shanghai! (I'm only vaguely kidding. I like to know what I'm getting into before I go anywhere.) Enjoy yourself a little while you're there, okay? —Dreama (October 15, 2001 12:09 AM) Ryan -- did they let you take on carry-ons on your flights over? If so, how many? Did they have smaller size restrictions? As you can imagine I'm quite interested!! —Lani (October 15, 2001 9:35 AM) You know how they ask people to turn off CD players, video games, assorted other electronic devices... upon takeoff and approach? Remember, digital cameras fall under that same umbrella... —dick (October 17, 2001 9:23 PM) And to just think, I only missed you by a day in Narita airport! Yeah, the observation deck is not a bad thing at all. —Kristina (October 27, 2001 8:02 AM) E kala mai! Comments have been disabled due to overwhelming abuse by spammers. Please click through to any of the video hosting services linked above to leave a public response, or feel free to send an e-mail. Mahalo! < October 13 · October · October 16 > © 1997-2008 Ryan Kawailani Ozawa · E-Mail: imr@lightfantastic.org · Created: 13 November 1997 · Last Modified: 14 January 2008