July 10, 2006 – Running Through Shanghai Pu Dong

July 10, 2006 – Running Through Shanghai Pu Dong

It’s Sunday July 9th 2006 and I’m in Shanghai at this moment in the lobby bar of the Sofitel Jin Jiang Hotel Pu Dong. I arrived at around 10:00 PM last night on Japan Airlines flight 795 after connecting through Tokyo Narita from JAL flight 25 Narita from LAX. I managed to sleep through the night after watching the end of “The Big Lebowski” on Star Movies—the selection of English language programming is quite varied. I awoke this morning at 6:30 AM and called my wife IM to let her know I'd arrived without trouble and described the uneventful flight from Narita to Shanghai Pu Dong on a JAL Boeing 757 with two seats on each bulkhead and three seats in the middle. I stupidly forgot that though the plane has two seats on each bulkhead, they still number the seats A and C for the port side seats with D, E, and G for the middle seats. I learned this because I took the wrong aisle seat and a courteous Japanese man who was assigned the seat I was in, explained the naming convention as he asked me to vacate his seat. I finally understood my mistake and took my assigned seat after making my apology. Arrival at Shanghai was uneventful. JAL placed the correct documents I needed to complete in order to pass through immigration, customs and medical quarantine.

The first impression of Shanghai is the new airport, a concrete and steel structure that reminded me of Taiwan’s Chiang Kai Shek, though I’m sure the transportation ministry in China would take offense at the comparison. Saturday night was relatively slow if the number of arriving and departing flights was any indication. JAL once again showed video of the landing and long slow taxi to the terminal. The Japanese fellow whose seat I had inadvertently occupied was first up and out of his seat. He had moved to near the front of the plane before any of the other passengers had risen to claim their carry- ons.

The first stop after getting off the plane was the quarantine desk, a lone lady government official collecting the white forms each of us was supposed to have completed while in flight. Beyond the quarantine desk, our progress slowed as we queued up to pass through immigration, once again ladies behind two of the desks that I had a choice of taking. Each passenger took about a minute to make it through the process. On the other side, we move down an escalator to baggage claim and as we arrive, our luggage is being disgorged onto the moving carrousel. I have to wait for my beige hanging bag to make it out. Bags for first and business class passengers are being sent out ahead of economy class. The wait isn’t long though and I’m soon in possession of my business garb I’ll need for the Monday meeting that I’ve traveled here for. The next stop is customs where I go through the “Nothing to Declare” line but get stopped because I haven’t signed the form. I dutiful sign and date the form and hand it to the lone lady official and follow my fellow passengers out the secure area into the civilian side of the airport, a gauntlet of expectant faces and signs—some printed others handwritten with names of arriving passengers on the other side of a waist-high barrier. I see my name beneath a neat sign with the Sofitel logo at the top and I wave at the young man holding it. He motions me around the crowd of expectant faces and I catch sight of him after loosing him as I round the barrier. He takes my beige garment bag and motions me to follow him. He says to me in English, “I’ll have to call the driver.” I say “that will be fine,” and follow without further exchange. I’m tired and the thought that someone else will get me to the place I need to be is comforting. It takes a few minutes for him to raise the driver but soon enough he says the driver is waiting for us outside and he leads me into the humid, Shanghai night where a new Buick is waiting for us near the exit. I get into the back seat—notice thankfully that the AC is going—while my companion puts my garment bag in the trunk and then joins the driver in the front seat. We drive in silence down the wide airport highway finally connecting to a larger freeway. It’s just after 9:30 and the night doesn’t allow much visibility beyond the freeway lights, which leads me to believe we’re passing through a sparsely populated rural area. The driver is observing the speed limit but other drivers pass him on the right and the left, most of the light traffic is late model Japanese, American and European cars, I notice a couple of Mercedes, a few Buicks, a couple of Volkswagon Jettas, and Nissans, Toyotas, and Mazdas—zoom zoom. We finally exit the freeway and drive down a broad boulevard four or five lanes wide in each direction. Along the road I keep wondering why the driver stops only to look to the left to see a lone red light near the center divider. You have to be looking for this light otherwise you’ll run right through it. Along this stretch of road I begin to see new buildings appearing lining either side of the road. Soon there are multistory buildings on both sides of the road and finally I see out the front of the Buick a tall building with an oval shaped structure on top. I notice it because it’s lit up calling out for attention. The driver makes a left and the building is visible outside the passenger windows. He makes another right and we appear to be driving toward it. A couple of minutes later we arrive at the building and I realize it’s the Sofitel.

I’m tired and my legs are wobbly as I exit the back seat of the Buick. The young man in the passenger side of the front seat tells me that he’ll have my bag sent up to my room and that I should go inside to the registration desk. I thank him and enter the spacious, nearly empty lobby of the hotel, notice the check-in counter off to the left of the entrance, and approach with my passport and American Express card in hand. The male desk clerk takes both and begins keying information into the computer he’s standing in front of. A lady behind the counter sees me arrive and comes to the male clerk’s aid. She fills out a form by hand that she shows me, explaining that breakfast is not included in my rate, asking me to initial my check in and check out date and agreement that I won’t smoke in the non-smoking room and finally asks me to sign the form, which I do. She hands me a plastic key as the young man returns my credit card and passport. She says my room number 2105 and indicates the bank of elevators off to her right. I ask for change for a 100 RMB and she gives me five 20s. I follow her directions and find my way to my room. A short few minutes later the bellman arrives with my bag and I give him 20 RMB after he shows me where the PC AC outlet and LAN connection are hidden in the top of the blond Scandinavian wooden desk beside the matching low-to-the-floor king size bed.

When I finish relaying to IM the events of my arrival in Shanghai she gives me an update on our daughters RD and ME who both called IM to wish me well on my trip. Afterwards, I ring off and don my running shorts, white T-shirt, and shoes and make my way down the elevator to the lobby and out the door of the Sofitel onto Yanggao Road. It’s a wide, four-lane in each direction, thoroughfare. I head north for a long block. There Yanggao Road intersects smaller Huamu Road where I turn right and head east toward Central Park, an expansive “V”-shaped garden park with the tip of the V formed by the Jinxiu Road, Huamu Road intersection, and the top of the V delimited by Fangdian Road, the length of the park equal to if not greater than Central Park in Manhattan. As I run along Huamu Road, I’m awed by the high rise condo development lining the road opposite the park, all multistory Italian architecture developments. Each stretches the length of a Manhattan block along Fifth Avenue.

As I start my run, I meet few others out on the road this early in the morning either walking or riding a bike or motor scooter. Those out this early are the lone workers cleaning up the sidewalks along the park, solitary men and women with rudimentary broom and dust pan collecting up leaves, cut grass, and any man made discards. I’m reminded of the maintenance crews Kurt Vonnegut describes in his novel “Piano Player.” For a moment I consider what kind of life they must have and how they must view their existence amid the expansive splendor they see in the buildings around them. I do make it to the end of Central Park and I turn to retrace my tracks and I feel the heat and humidity getting to me. I’m completely drenched in sweat and no matter how much I wipe the accumulated sweat from my brow, it keeps returning. I’m reminded of running in Hong Kong and Singapore where the humidity was about the same. The humidity doesn’t seem to affect the natives in the same way as me. I know it’s my body adjusting to the environment and should I stay for a longer period of time, it would determine how to keep cool without this excessive sweating.

I put that out of my mind and begin to notice that the activity along Huamu Road has picked up with more bicycles and motor scooters running along the bike path as well as pedestrian walkway along this southern side of Central Park. When I finally make it back to Yanggao Road, I’m beat and decide to walk the block back to the Sofitel. After my return, I shower and go down for breakfast in the Grand Café on the ground floor of the hotel. It’s a sparse crowd today, a number of westerners among the diners. I drink my fill of coffee, five cups—the waitress is impressed with my capacity for caffeine—and finish a breakfast of eggs over easy with hash browns and bacon.