Very Foggy Shanghai

Finally home after a 12 hours and 34 minutes flight direct from Chicago to Shanghai. Looonnnggg..... Good thing we had 3 seats to ourselves. I have to say, after flying United, I won't complain about Air Canada's in-flight and customer services anymore! We flew a 747-400. The interior was not kept up to date; old, tired and dark! Reminded me of a highway cheap motel with the 60's decors. At least, there was no smell from the carpet like the flight from Raleigh to Chicago.

Food service was inconsistent! We ordered vegetarian meals. The lunch, the flight attendant only brought out for Audrey and not mine. When I checked in, I clearly saw both of our records with vegetarian meals. The snack half way thru, "no record of any vegetarian meal". Then the meal before landing, I had to tell them to give Audrey her meal! They went looking and there it was with her name printed! Go figure! Good thing I stocked pile bags of walnuts, raisins, almonds, water, bananas and apples! Wow, a 12-hour plus picnic. Hee hee.... Movies were bad; in order to save cost, I believe, United actually played the same movies going and coming to Asia. I had seen the movie Stardust about 4 times now.

I did visit Canada briefly as well as the contentious Artic territory when flying back to Shanghai. The flight cut up north thru Thunder Bay and arced back down via Siberia. The flight was smooth. To make the flight easier, I did bought a novel and couple glasses of scotch and wine. And of course, about 2 litres of water.

When we were ready to land, we had to circle around the Pudong airport in Shanghai due to heavy fog. The entire city was shrouded. The highway we normally took from the Airport to home was closed. It has been like this for a couple days. No, not because of smog or haze but the weather pattern. Lots of cancellations. Just read from the Shanghai Daily - a cold front may even bring snow to the city this weekend!!! Yikes! I thought I have escaped the white stuff! Visibility yesterday was down to about 400m at places. Wow, 340 flights could not land or take off!!!! FedEx and UPS were hurt due to the foggy condition. Let's hope Monday's weather will improve as our flight is to leave for Sydney at 6:15pm. So far, we have escaped all the bad weathers in the States. Let see if the trend continues.

Reporting live from foggy Shanghai....