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

avatar
(Edited)

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

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.

gold gradient pojedyncze pioro prawe.png

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.

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

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.

gold gradient pojedyncze pioro prawe.png

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)

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

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:)

gold gradient pojedyncze pioro prawe.png

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.

gold gradient pojedyncze pioro prawe.png

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.

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

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:)

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

How's your week is going? Friday Eve is here!
Yours,
Strega Azure

podwojne pioro zlote gradient.png

This post is my answer to DreemPort Challenge, week 2.
If you want to join this month WorldMaPin & DreemPort collab, please find links below:
Dreemport July Challenge - Worldmappin
Dreemport July Challenge - Worldmappin - Week 2

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GOLD.png

IMG_20170521_213230.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213247.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213304.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213349.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213404.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213431.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213452.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213509.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213540.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213544.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_213656.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_222436.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_214024.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_000432.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_131554.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_131946.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_131953_1.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_132000.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_132004.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_182702.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170522_182713.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170523_093754.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170523_094553_1.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_152548.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_155927.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_155930.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_162202.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_162205.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180114_162213.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_085434.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_091139.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_134102.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_191618.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_191625.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_191816.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_191924.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_191931.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_205201.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20180115_205215.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170519_150659.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170519_150709.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_195031.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_201537.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_201537_1.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170521_201634_1.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GRAFIT.png

IMG_20170517_194533.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GOLD.png

trypt.jpg

SEPARATOR DIAMENT GOLD.png

All pictures are my authorship if not stated otherwise.

All rights reserved @strega.azure ©

hive gold.png

Stopka-druga-proba.jpg



0
0
0.000
8 comments
avatar

China is one of the places I wish to visit in my life.
The pictures look quite great and show how beautiful the place is.

But I feel the language is quite very very difficult to learn
Nice trip

0
0
0.000
avatar

Glad you like it!
I can't speak for whole country, but I do recommend to go to Shanghai. In other places it is hard to move around without basic knowledge of Mandarin.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This was such a great post. It captured that first flight abroad feelings so well. Really captivated me and looking forward to the part two of this visit. I do want to visit Shangai, but thanks to the pandemic lots of planned trips got cancelled and now work trips have reduced :( Hoping to get a chance in the future. Cheers from another #dreemerforlife

0
0
0.000
avatar

I am very glad you enjoyed my article. I'm glad that work has taken me to the other side of the world, because it has awakened my appetite for travel but also opened my mind. I recommend Shanghai to everyone because it is not only a cultural cauldron but has its own special charm. I recommend exploring the small, narrow alleys - you can find tiny restaurants with delicious, local and cheap food. And the staff are friendly. Usually they do not know a word of English, but everything can be done with a 'body language';)

Thank you for you visit and great comment!

0
0
0.000
avatar

I can imagine how overwhelmed you were after getting the full details about your trip abroad, that's what happens when you don't expect such things to be.

Shanghai, China is a beautiful city, ever bustling just like a city should be. But with your description of the stress experienced at the arrivals, I'm already not too cool with it.
The pictures are nice.

0
0
0.000
avatar

In the job description it had 'business trip' included, but I would never think that job will take me on the other side of the globe. Yep, cultural shock hit me in the face right there :D But later on was only better. The weather though, that was the most difficult part of the trip.

Thank you for your visit!

0
0
0.000