Day 1 - Tuesday 16th November 2010

It was a great honour to be invited as a guest to join a small group of nine Australians and New Zealanders to visit China from the 16th to 24th of November 2010. Seven people came from various parts of Australia, and two people came from New Zealand.

Departure day was 16th November. I stayed with friends the previous night in Sydney and enjoyed my last Aussie BBQ meal.  I was driven to their nearest railway station and caught the train to the Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport to board the MU562 12noon flight on China Eastern Airlines to Shanghai, the largest city in China. I was second in the short queue at the check in area when they opened for business at 9am so I had plenty of time to explore the Airport shops till boarding. My bag weighed well under the 30 kg limit at only 15 kg. (A slightly higher weight of 37kg for my three checked in bags on the flight home at the end of the China visit!)

I spotted our China Eastern plane as it taxied into position when I was having a cup of coffee at the airport. I noticed it had the Expo 2010 painted on the side. The World Expo 2010 was held in Shanghai from May to October with the theme “Better City, Better Life”. The Expo had 246 participants, 79,965 volunteers and attracted 73 million visitors, the largest number of people who have ever attended a World Expo. 

At 11.30am I went through Customs and to the Departure Gate printed on the Boarding Pass but found a plane from another airline.. I reasoned that this must be the wrong Departure Gate and after wandering I eventually found the right one and boarded our China Eastern Airlines plane with a warm welcome from the flight crew.  The cabin on the A330 plane was very clean, with white/grey surroundings and blue seats in a 2-4-2 configuration. The seats had a pitch of 33” and a width of 17.8" while a button on the right armrest allowed me to recline the seat back 5.5 inches. To my surprise I discovered that Pat, the person sitting next to me on the plane, was one of the group of Australian and New Zealander people I was going to China with. The time went quickly on the plane, spending time chatting with Pat, looking out of my comfortable window seat, and enjoying the lunch and dinner meals served. Lunch was a meat and noodle dish, accompanied by a salad, bread roll, chocolate bar and fresh sliced fruit for dessert. Drinks offered included green tea, juice or soft drink. Dinner was a hot meat, rice and vegetable dish accompanied by a bread roll, salad, and chocolate cake dessert. There were no entertainment units on the back of the seats, but TV screens scattered along the ceiling of the plane showed mainly Chinese movies.

After a ten hour flight, with only a few pockets of air turbulence, the plane arrived at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Terminal One, at which we arrived, was opened in 1999 and has 28 gates, 13 of which are double decker gates, and 204 check-in counters. The second Terminal opened in 2008. Even though it is the third busiest airport in the world, we soon collected our bags and met Daniel our helpful Chinese guide. It wasn’t long before we went out into the cool dark evening and boarded our mini-bus and drove 150 kilometres for about 2 hours along the tollways and roads to Wuzhen, a traditional water town. The tollways were multi-laned, with drivers driving on the opposite side of the road to Australia. I counted 40 toll booths on one toll road exit! I was surprised by the lack of traffic we experienced while travelling, as I was expecting bumper to bumper traffic all the way in the most populated country in the world.

On arrival at Wuzhen, the old water town, we enjoyed a delicious Chinese banquet dinner at a local restaurant, even though it was late, and we had previously eaten on the plane. We then settled into our comfortable rooms at the Tong An Hotel. The Hotel was recently built on a man-made island to blend in with the old town buildings to represent a typical south of the Yangtze River building complex of the Ming and Qing dynasties, It is decorated in an elegant traditional Chinese style and has 70 double rooms, 13 single rooms and 24 suites. All the rooms face either neighbouring streets or lakes with water views out the windows. It was a wonderful first night’s introduction to my China visit!