Non-traveller experience in China || ShangHai, JinZhou and more - photo feed and a story 1/2

Working for a millions-worth corporation usually has as many pros as cons. Stressful environment including ‘open office’ nonsense, tight dead-line's, team-building meetings that leave only distaste afterwards. But there are also benefits in the form of a very good insurance, the infamous multi-sport card, training to expand your competences and business trips.

Today I will focus on the latter. Before I started working as a clothing designer, I had no experience when it came to business trips. My previous job was a 15-minute walk from my home and the work itself did not require any travel either.

The new job was challenging almost every step of the way, but when I first heard ‘business trip’ - I admit I was terrified. Meetings were organised - one for the whole department (I worked in the men's department) and then for smaller – garment divided - teams.

At the first ‘big’ meeting in the conference room with our director -'M', with the help of a PowerPoint presentation (a tool I till this day still despise), presented us with a budget for the upcoming trips abroad covering two quarters of the year. I was wandering with my eyes the excel document unable to believe the amounts grant to each team. The team I was part of (heavy garments) and the trouser team received the largest trip budgets.

At a smaller team-meeting, our product manager ‘G’ calmly explained to us that trips abroad were a necessity, so everyone needed to have their passports and be ready to go when necessary. Each of us was given a calendar of trips. I almost fell off my chair when I saw that my first trip would be two weeks long(!!!) and would take me to the other side of the globe - China.

Apart from a holiday job in Germany or Switzerland, I had not been anywhere abroad. So imagine what I might have felt when I realised how far my new job would take me. I remember feeling light-headed and I remember my Product Manager asking:

-Hey, are you okay?

My body reacted like a well-oiled corporate drone without my knowing it:

-Yes, of course! I am very happy about the opportunities the company offers us!

Events continued to snowball.
-I’ve got a passport,
-got a suitcases and travel bags from ‘business trip dep’ (that's when I found out that we have a whole department that deals only with this and accounting for business trips),
-printing documentation (we found out that the internet in China has daily data limits)
-installing the necessary apps on the phone - wechat (quite similar tool to what's app but works in China) and vpn(so we can use sites that are blocked in China)
-got laptop that was 'Far East trips ready'(required different kind of firewalls and had VPN)
-and… I did a little bit of shopping (I had to get clothes suitable for the temperatures there)

Before I knew it - I was sitting on a plane. We flew from Gdansk to Copenhagen and from there to Shanghai. I just want to stress out that this was my second EVER trip by plane. I am not afraid of flying at all, but the whole process before and after landings stressed me out a lot. I just decided to stuck to my big brother's advice:

-Just follow the crowd!

The first flight passed quickly, it was only an hour long one. Nevertheless, it was not a pleasant one - like all short flights - this one too was operated by a small plane. And such aircraft are not very comfortable when the weather is bad. Turbulence was really strong for about half of the flight. Everyone had to wear their seatbelts the whole way. But, finally the landing was very soft:)

Already sitting in the large plane, I thought about the prospect of an 11-hour journey with tension. I had a book and my music with me to pass the time. I browsed through the catalogue of films available on the journey (each passenger has a screen/ tablet to use)) and I admit that I found some ok-ish ones. Nevertheless... 11 hours. Longer than a day at work. Without going into details(because this post is already far tooooooo looooooong ;D) the journey was nightmarish. I didn't sleep a wink the whole way, my head hurt most of the journey, for about an hour turbulence were so strong to the point where some of the passengers started screaming and my neighbour, 'I' pulled a rosary out of her hand luggage. No, not kidding ;/

On the bright side - the food was decent :D

Stepping out of the plane, I felt the heat wave hitting me. The air was so humid that it felt like it was raining. The temperature was so high that within minutes I was sweaty(forgive me the graphic details in advance, as there will be more!). As we walked down the huge corridor towards passports control I felt myself getting faint. I stopped by the wall to get a drink of water and waited for the rest of the team. I lost them at the exit of the plane, people almost trampled me in the aisle, so I had to walk forward, even though I knew the rest of my colleges were waiting in the aisle for their turn to get their luggage from the overhead lockers.

I managed to find ‘my people’ and we walked on together down the endless wide corridor. We finally approached a massive ‘arrivals hall’. There were a dozen if not more passport control ‘booths’(very tall desks) and everyone was politely waiting in line for their turn. We stood like this for over an hour. The queue was moving very slowly, and when it was my turn - I understood why. I walked up to the desk, the gentleman from passport control pointed to the camera. I looked into the eye of the camera for a long moment. With another hand gesture, he let me know to show my profile. He carded my passport several times. Then he looked at my face with great attention for several minutes, comparing my face with the one in the photo. I could feel the sweat trickling down my forehead. The controller stood up and leaned over the glass partition and watched me even more attentively. When I was ready to ask ‘Is everything alright?’ the officer quickly sat down, took another long look at my passport, focused on the visa glued on one of the pages and with a loud ‘thud’ put a red stamp in my passport.

I passed him and waited for the rest of the team. Standing at the tall desk of the passport control officer was K - our fashion buyer. K had the worst time of all of us - it took her more than 15 minutes to get through the ‘inspection’. Afterwards, she told us that the officer was really unhappy to the appearance of her hair. K showed us her passport - I have to admit I barely recognised her in the photo myself. Not only do I not recall K ever not-smiling, but most importantly she had dark hair in the photo. And I knew K as a blonde, and I will admit that I would never have come across the fact that she was dyeing her hair.

We took cash out of the ATM(taxi drivers prefer cash and many of them still don't have card terminals) while still at the airport and headed for the taxi exit.

We needed two large taxis to fit us all with our luggage's. And it was only here(in a car) that I also took my first photos. Photography was prohibited at the airport and I must admit, that it didn’t even come to my mind to take my phone out of my pocket on the airport. The number of security guards and the organised way in which passport control was carried out made me very uneasy.

From the taxi I took a few photos. What struck me most strongly - apart from the monstrousness and height of the buildings - was the smog. An impenetrable grey filled the city to the brim! We were instructed to wear masks, but sitting with a mask on in the car at 44(seriously) degrees Celsius(111.2°F) for a good hour was really unpleasant. I was dreaming of a shower. It was only then that I realised I had drunk two bottles of water from leaving the plane to the taxi journey and didn't need to go pee. I must have
sweat that water off??

I've never experienced a temperature like that before outside the sauna of course.

Check-in at the hotel went smoothly. I took a shower and wanted to go to bed.

It's early, better get used to the local time as soon as possible she said.*

-"So... What do you thinking?

We're going out!

-yyyy......

-Put on your comfortable walking shoes and let's go!

I was so exhausted that I didn't have the strength to argue. As we left the hotel it slowly started to get dark. Outside the hotel we met some of our team. We asked if they were coming with us and our ‘pack’ grew to four people. And ‘I’ led the way because she was the only one of the four of us who had been to Shanghai before. Well, and she had been here many times. We trotted along the crowded streets. I stopped every now and then to take photos. I was overwhelmed by the size of this city and the number of neon signs assaulting my travel-weary eyes.

And yet Shanghai captivated me already on the very first evening:)

to be continued:)