任是无情也动人

Was finally able to avoid getting up early yesterday morning. Had a leisurely breakfast buffet at the Circus Circus hotel. Then took the noon flight to LA.

Finally, normal CA weather instead of the heatwave that is Vegas. We got to the hotel 2 hours before check-in time. Left our luggage with the concierge.

Then walked over to crypto.com stadium, a requested destination by my nephew who is a basketball nut. He and his dad then proceeded to spend over a hour taking pics of the statues in front and in the gift shop. He also got scammed out of $50 by some rando posing as a sports star selling autographs... 😑

We got back to the hotel an hour after normal check-in time, but got told our rooms were still not ready. Apparently they're booked full for the weekend and housekeeping is backed up. We waited another hour and got one of the 2 suites, and the second one not til 7 pm. 😑

For dinner we went to a nearby Brazilian steakhouse, probably the most formal dining we had on this trip. Food was good, especially given that my nephew who hates veggies actually ate the veggie portion of the dishes of his own accord.

After dinner we called an Under to go to Griffith Observatory. Unfortunately, due to the late start, the traffic... by the time we got there, it was only like 5-10 mins from closing. We only got a chance to take some night pics of the city before we had to leave.

Sigh.

This morning we met up with our driver for a one-day LA city tour package. Basically it involves hitting most of the famous spots of the city, including Hollywood Hills, the Walk of Fame, The Last Bookstore, Rodeo St., Beverly Hills, Sunset Blvd., Getty Museum. For lunch we went to the local Chinatown and had dim sum.

I'm more or less meh about most of these places, but my cousin and nephew had a blast, and bought a bunch of souvenirs. Makes me concerned if they're gonna need an extra trunk by the time the return to China.

At the end, we were delivered to LAX at 6. Unfortunately our flight is delayed to 9:15ish... So it's gonna be a long wait.

9:00 PM local time, Shanghai, CN

Life hates me with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

First, it lulls me into a sense of false security on the flight from Chicago to Shanghai. Because the flight wasn't booked full, there were lots of empty seats to the back where you could take up the full aisle for sleeping. Watched "Enchanted", "Waterhorse", "National Treasure" and the sequel in between naps. Pretty good ride overall.

Then, after we got to Shanghai at about 2:30 PM local time, everything that could go wrong, did.

First, the only piece of luggage we checked in didn't appear. This is most likely due to the last minute transfer we had on our first flight to LA. Who knows where it is right now. Sadly, we'd thrown away the booklet thing that the checkin lady gave our boarding passes with, the same one that included the tag numbers for the luggage check in. The only bright side was that AA was able to locate the check-in numbers in their database. But we still have to drop by tomorrow for the next AA flight to Shanghai to see if the luggage will arrive by then. This whole ordeal with the baggage claim people took about 30 mins to settle.

(This was also the beginning of a domino effect. If it weren't for needing to pick up luggage the next day, and due to the fact that it was raining too hard to motivate any shopping the same day in Shanghai, we would have taken the bus directly to the train station and gone to Nanjing.)

Then, we took the 5th line public bus from the airport to where our booked hotel was. When we got off, due to the fact it was raining and because the bus lady wasn't too sure of the hotel's exact location, she advised we take a cab the rest of the way. As it turned out, the hotel was actually within walking distance of the bus stop; but that is hindsight speaking. The bus trip itself was a hellish (read boring) ride of over an hour from Pudong Airport to (downtown?) Shanghai.

When we got to the hotel, that was when my mom discovered that our passports were missing. Most likely not theft, since her wallet and other misc junk in her other pockets were still there. The passports most likely fell out of her pocket in between the time we were on the bus (when she remembered checking for them), and the hotel.

(Minor note - Mom also apparently booked the rooms for the 7th and the 8th. Unfortunately, she miscalculated the time difference including the international date line. It's right now the 8th. =_=)

As for why the hell she had just the two passports in her pocket... I really rue not pushing harder when coming out of the airport, I was already prepared to put away my passport into my backpack. But Mom asked for it since she said we'll need them soon again when we got to the hotel. Well she was right about that... but she also didn't have them anymore. So we also don't have anywhere to stay for the night anymore.

In the end, after some frantic calls back home to my dad in the US, and to relatives in Nanjing, we found a friend of my mom's in Shanghai who was able to book another hotel for us under her name. The place is kinda... seedy... and is farther away from where all the places we'll need to go to are... but beggars and choosers and all that.

We tried everything so far...

* Called the cab company. But we didn't know to get a receipt of the ride, so who knows if they've been able to get in touch with the right cab driver. Our best hope is that the passports fell out in the cab ride, in which case, they can discover it when the cabbies turn in for the night. But, this is looking more unlikely by the minute... *cry*

* Called the bus company. Also didn't keep the receipt for the bus ride, so only could give them an estimated boarding time of around 3 PM. They said they'll call us back.

* Contacted the local police station. But they can't really do anything other than call the above places and also give us the address/number of the lost & found department, and the embassy.

So tomorrow we'll need to contact the lost & found police division, the US embassy in Shanghai, and also find the time to pick up the remaining luggage piece if it comes it. And also buy a cellphone... since it looks like we're gonna be needing it.

You know, it's crap like this that makes me never want to travel more than car/BART distance from home (and that's home as in Fremont).

Lessons learned:

* Always get a receipt and don't let Mom throw everything away when she feels like it.

* Paranoia over convenience.

Well, actually, I've been back for two days now. But I've been spending the last two days catching up on stuff.

My trip to China's been a blast, except when I got sick and the flight back. I've put up backdated entries for the entire experience up on my journal. Here's a menu for easy access (and bookmarking):

12/20 Day 0 - SF to Shanghai
12/21 Day 1 - In Shanghai
12/21 Day 1 - In Nanjing
12/22 Day 2 - Stayed In
12/24 Day 4 - Shopping
12/25 Day 5 - More Shopping
12/26 Day 6 - Family Lunch
12/27 Day 7 - Shopping for Bootleg
12/30 Day 10 - Another Lunch
01/01 Day 12 - More Family Time & Lunch
01/02 Day 13 - Family Visit
01/03 Day 14 - Another Family Visit
01/04 Day 15 - Shopping Again
01/05 Day 16 - Bad Karma
01/06 Day 17 - Sick
01/07 Day 18 - Still Sick
01/08 Day 19 - Nanjing to Shanghai
01/09 Day 20 - Leaving Shanghai
01/09 Day 20 - Stop at Japan
01/09 Day 20 - Stop at LA
01/09 Day 20 - Back Home Again

I hate LA with the burning passion of 1000 suns. First, they kept us waiting on the runway for another extra hour, making our flight late by 2 whopping hours. Then we had to get our luggage from the carrousel and run it through customs again - a process which seems to consist solely of getting the bags from point A (pick up) to point B (recheckin). Why this cannot be done automatically or by airport personnel is beyond me.

It was already 12:10 when we got to the baggage re-check-in. My mom's next flight had already left by then, so she had to reschedule. My flight boards at 12:30 and leaves at 1:00 (or so says my ticket), so I was told to run for it as they processed by baggage. I ran.

Then I discovered that I had to go through the incredibly long line that spanned the length of 2 floors for the security check-in. Since I didn't have 1-2 hours of luxury for waiting, I cut. that is, I ran to the head of the line and worked backwards, asking people if I could cut in front of them and showing them my ticket. Still, it was bare minutes to 1:00 when I finally got past security, who were seriously taking their darn sweet time looking at each item on the track like they didn't know what there were looking for/at.

So then I made another mad dash across the building because of course the gate for my flight would be at the other end of the looong terminal corridor. Then I got there and collapsed against the counter staring dumbly at the screen declaring flight whatever for Denver. Luckily, the lady at the counter got my messages as I huffed incoherently and waved my ticket at her. Then I find out that the departing flight's also been delayed and won't be coming in for boarding until the Denver flight leaves. The new departure time had been changed to 1:45 2:00 2:30.

*stabs LA Airport*

And then, after boarding the plane, there was another delay of another 1.5 freakin' hours for the luggage to be loaded (and sorted, presumably). Compared to the barely hour-long flight time from LA to SF, this 3 hour delay at LA is simply ridiculous.