26 March 2019. I’m in a bit of a panic. Quite apart from the time crunch we’re in they’ve taken Don away and I can’t even see where. We’ve been standing in line in the cavernous arrivals hall at Shanghai airport for over an hour as hundreds of people are processed through Chinese immigration. Snaking back and forth through the barriers we’re trying not to be impatient, all the while aware that we only have three hours to make the connection. Finally it’s our turn and Don doesn’t have a visa. I have one, though I’m not aware of it until they tell me that my visa from 2018 is still valid. Don has had to follow an immigration officer way down the end of the line of desks to be given a 24 hour visa so we can proceed. I’m a bit perturbed that I’ll never see him again.
I’m processed through immigration and see the baggage claim area down a short flight of stairs, but I won’t go there until I’m reconnected with Don. I have a vague idea of where he is but I’m not allowed to go there though I keep inching in that direction. Finally I see the top of his head in the crowd with the immigration officer. I have no choice but to wait. It seems interminable. It’s not only that we’ve been separated and I don’t know the outcome of his situation, but also that time is ticking by.
It all started back in November when we decided to go to Rishikesh, India for a month in February to sit with Mooji, one of our favourite spiritual teachers. So this is how my mind works as we start looking at flights: To get to Delhi from Vancouver we have to go over the pole via Europe, or across the Pacific via Hong Kong or China. Paris! I think. It’s been years since we’ve been there, and who doesn’t love Paris? And if we have an over-the-pole connection it would have to be Paris or Frankfurt. I choose Paris!
So then I get thinking. Where can we stop on the way back. We can’t go all that way and just come straight home again! It’s a no brainer really. I’d been solo to Japan the year before and just loved it and wanted to share it with Don. I knew he’d love it and I was right. Anyway we had a plan: Vancouver to Paris, Paris to Delhi, Delhi to Kyoto (Kansai), Kyoto to Vancouver.
It seems a bit complicated so we decide to get a travel agent to look into the flights for us. We usually do our own booking but this seems more complex than usual so we think we might need some help. After a couple of days we get an email with an itinerary and cost. Over $11,000! We laugh. Seriously. We laugh out loud. How could that possibly be? A day or so later he sends another email offering an alternative that’s just under $11,000. I suppose we should have gotten back to him but we don’t bother. We just set about booking our own flights and it comes in at about $6000. That’s more like it. The only troublesome part is the flight from Kansai. It’s an Air Canada flight partnered with Air China with a three-hour transfer in Shanghai. We wouldn’t normally book something with only three hours for a transfer. The shortest we’ve done is four hours and still missed the connecting flight!
We phone both Air China and Air Canada asking if we would have to actually enter China, which would mean going through immigration, baggage collection, and customs and officially entering the country (and we know how long that can take!), or could we just go through transit straight to the gate for the next flight?
Neither airline can tell us! They say we’ll find out when we get there! Seriously?!
We decide to risk it.
*****************************
Finally I’m reconnected with Don and we race down to get our bags and head to the exit. Then it registers. There’s an enormous crowd waiting to get through customs. Hundreds of people with their bags, all headed to one exit. One. My heart drops. What are we going to do? We’ll never get through in time.
Suddenly I see a person in uniform walking by. I suppose I don’t even think about whether or not he would speak English. I certainly don’t have the Chinese I need so I just blurt out that we have a connecting flight. He immediately opens the barrier at the front of the line for us. We put all our bags through the scanner, and go out through the exit. We are officially in China, in the arrivals area of Shanghai Airport. Now what?
Fortunately there’s enough signage in English that we can find the departure area, and then the checkin desk for the Air Canada flight home. We make it with twenty minutes to spare. With boarding passes in hand we head to the departure gate and finally relax. Phew! That was stimulating.
Photos: The opening shots are the first two photos I took on this trip – quintessential Paris architecture and some sweet street art. The closing shots are the last ones I took on the trip – a street scene at the Kitano Tenmangu Flea Market after seeing a geisha performance, a department store in Kyoto that is so wonderfully Japanese that I just had to share it, and a very fancy, very expensive sushi meal at a restaurant close by our overnight hotel near Kansai Airport.
Next post: Vancouver’s Japanese festivals – Nikkei Matsuri and the Powell Street Festival.
All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2021.
Yikes
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Yes really. It was pretty nerve wracking. But we made it!
Alison
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Love your photos and fully relate to the story.
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Thanks so much Cindy. I’m not surprised you can relate lol 🙂
Alison
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I can imagine the tensions. In Sanya, China we were taken inside Custome to check on husbands laptop & our iPhones. Thankfully all three had our personal pics that made them realise we were not going to sell them
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Wow, Indra! That must have been stressful. I don’t think I have a personal pic on either of mine. Better fix that. Well maybe I do in my photo files, but not on my desktop.
Alison
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Heavens, that sounds way too stressful, Alison. Immigration anywhere tends to be hair-raising – apart from on Zanzibar which is my one lovely experience.
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Oh yes, it was definitely stressful! And I agree – immigration is always just a little fraught. I would not have guessed Zanzibar to be lovely. We’ve had many places that were smooth and easy, just loooong. And being welcomed home to Canada is always lovely.
Alison
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Ha been there a few times. The stressful close call airport connection. Sometimes I made it, other times not so lucky…
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Sometimes we’ve allowed a 7 hour connection time because we couldn’t get any accurate info, and hung out in and airport VIP lounge. It was so relaxing. we’ve had other close calls, but always made it. Lucky I guess.
Alison
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Beautifully written. You really convey the stress of a close call.
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Thanks so much Stuart. Much appreciated. We were pretty lucky.
Alison
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Nice
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Thank you.
Alison
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Ooofff!! Airport stories can be stressful, weird and funny all around!
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Ooofff! is right! I agree – weird, stressful and funny. I actually like the whole airport vibe and experience, except when it gets like this!
Alison
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I agree. Plus, it’s like they are deliberately intimidating at security and border patrol
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Nice
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Thank you.
Alison
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Unfortunately oh do familiar with the stress of trying to make a connection and the hassles of immigration. In the end though it’s still always all worth it and the experiences on the ground usually erase the airport hassles pretty quickly!
Peta
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Oh yes, the experiences always quickly erase the hassles of flight connections and immigration. It’s interesting that neither airline told us we’d need a visa. And in the end I suppose we didn’t – they were really well set up for travellers like us.
I actually enjoy the whole airport experience, it feels like an adventure, just not when it gets this stressful.
Alison
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Trying to make a connection is often the most stressful part of a holiday. For me this happened when James and I had to fly out of Danang to go back to Jakarta after spending a week in central Vietnam. We had to transit in Kuala Lumpur, but the flight departing Danang was late. I had to notify the staff at the check in counter about our connecting flight, and he said that he would put our luggage in the cabin to minimize the risk of it not being able to make the transfer. When we arrived at the expansive airport in KL, we ran like crazy to find the gate for the flight to Jakarta. I remember the airport was somehow quite a maze. When we finally made it to the gate, they already started boarding. Phew!
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Wow, your story sounds even more crazy and stressful than ours. It must have been such a relief to make the flight to Jakarta. We had a similar experience years ago in Europe somewhere – EasyJet I think it was – the first flight was late. We ran like crazy to get the next flight only to find they’d delayed it because they knew they had many people from the first flight booked on the second. I guess anyone who travels a lot has similar stories to ours.
Alison
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Oh my goodness – you and Don must have been so grateful when the man at customs opened the gate and let you through! I find it so strange (and a bit unprofessional in my opinion) that neither Air Canada nor Air China could give a straight answer on whether you could check your luggage through and transit without having to go through immigration.
My most nail-biting flight connection happened during my freshman year at college in England. My family had decided to spend Christmas in Vancouver because my sister was there at the time and my brother was also in Canada. I’d managed to get a nonstop flight from London but would have to transit in Toronto on the way back. As it turns out, the domestic Vancouver–Toronto flight was delayed for two hours, and I had something like 50 minutes to make the connection. I remember running like mad through the terminal to reach the gate, where the ground crew were announcing the final boarding call as I got there. When I finally touched down in Heathrow I waited and waited at baggage reclaim but my suitcase didn’t show up – it had apparently missed the second flight. I reported this to the airport authorities and they very kindly sent it to my dorm the next day.
And the saga wasn’t even over. Much to my dismay, I unzipped my suitcase to find that a bag of heavily herbed Italian rice my mom had given me had exploded all over my clothes during the journey. I needed to wash everything and air out the suitcase for two weeks just to get rid of the smell. My sister was laughing about the whole thing when I told her over the phone – she took to calling me “Spice Boy” for a while. A couple months later I smelled that same Italian herbal blend outdoors and immediately felt a wave of nausea wash over me. It’s funny how my brain associated that aroma with the entire nightmarish experience!
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I too find it strange, and yes, unprofessional, that neither airline could tell us what to expect in Shanghai.
Your connection in TO sure sounds hair-raising. Fifty minutes is just not enough to make a connection, and I’m not surprised your bag didn’t make it with you, but at least you got it the next day. We had a similar time in TO – our Van flight left on time, but there was a huge electrical storm over TO so the plane couldn’t land – we were in the air for hours first thinking they’d land in Ottawa, then thinking they’d go to YUL to refuel, then finally we could actually land in TO. We’d allowed 4 hours for a connecting flight to Paris, but of course we missed it and had to go the next day. I think it’s the only connection we’ve missed.
Gaaaahhhhh! Nothing quite as awful as a suitcase explosion! What a mess! Spice Boy eh?! I’ll remember that 🙂
Alison
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Wow! How scary to be separated from Don – and to nearly miss your flight! It is so crazy to think that neither airline could tell you what would be needed to connect.
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It was pretty scary there for a bit. And I agree – just plain ridiculous that neither airline knew what would happen Shanghai. Anyway we were lucky, and made it with a little help from that uniformed airport official.
Alison
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Your story made me chuckle. Don’t we all now miss the buzz of these near-misses at airports… I have stayed put in Vietnam, riding out the Covid storm. I’m itching for adventure, but as we all recognise here: we have been very lucky with hardly any cases in this country and lockdown is mostly something we have experienced from a distance. We’ve had our short bursts of restrictions, but even masks are only worn for protection from the sun and dust when people hare around on their motorbikes…
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Oh yes, we sure do miss the joys, and woes, of travel. Aching for adventure!
Lucky to be in Vietnam throughout all this. I didn’t know they’d had so little of Covid there. That’s so good. Have you been teaching all this time? I’d love to go back to Vietnam – that would be an adventure for me!
Alison
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Wow, Alison. That is scary. I fault the airlines. But you and Don made it. As you always do. 🙂 And $11,000 for your tickets. Ouch. I didn’t think I would have called the agent back either. –Curt
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It was pretty scary. And I too fault the airlines. They should have known, especially Air China.
I was a bit snarky – I actually did email the agent and told him we went ahead and booked the flights ourselves for $6000, and that I was sorry I hadn’t given him a chance to do better. Liar liar pants on fire 🙂
Alison
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Laughing… The agent had to go make his profit off of someone else.
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Ugh, I’ve changed planes in Shanghai before, and the experience was very similar! Tons of crowds, tons of additional procedures, a huge airport, and almost not enough time. Now I purposefully try to avoid transferring in China if I can!
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Ugh is right! And lesson learned. For sure now we’ll avoid Shanghai if we possibly can. At least now we know what to expect.
Alison
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I could feel the anxiety! I’ve had a few close calls like this, and it’s just so stressful. Glad you made it! (How exasperating of the both airlines to be so dumb, too. How can having that info NOT be part of their jobs?!)
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Oh yeah, it was pretty darn stressful. I have no idea what we’d have done. Waited for the next available flight I guess, tho Don only had a 24 hr visa so it would have had to be soon! I imagine it just would have cost a ton of money. I too am glad we made it!
We were staggered, and appalled, that neither airline could tell us. I agree – it’s part of their job to know things like that! I think if we ever run into anything like this again I’ll be on the line with the airline until I get a real answer.
Alison
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The stresses of travelling! I could feel your anxiety. At least these “stimulating” situations make for good stories after the fact. The department store photo cracks me up.
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Oh we were anxious alright. It’s one situation that really sticks in my memory though of course there have been others. And yeah, great stories no matter the outcome. I guess if we’d missed the flight we’d have just had to through a ton of money at it to get another flight.
I tried (without success) to find out if this is a place where they sell these chairs and/or rent them by the hour. Some of those people sure look pretty settled in there.
Alison
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Twenty minutes to spare, and you did it! IT’s good to hear success stories! 😉 I also like your “Where else can we go on this trip? attitude. 🙂
Sorry about this very late comment.
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Thanks Lynn. We were so lucky. If I hadn’t accosted that man in uniform (which I kind of assumed was a customs officer uniform tho I had no idea really) we’d have been hooped. Also next time I need this kind of information from an airline I’ll be a little more insistent about getting a meaningful answer – s’thing other than you’ll find out when you get there! 😳
I always want to see where else we can go if we’re travelling a long distance – can’t waste that long-haul flight! ✈️
Alison
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