The Chinese Air Travel Standards

Greetings Everyone,

I recently went to Yunnan, probably one of the my favorite places to visit in mainland China. The air is clean, the scenery is beautiful and it you just get a different feel for China.

But unfortunately this time I want to vent about the airline services in China.  Before I praised China for their mass public transportation system meaning their railroad infrastructure, not this time.

So I decided to fly to Yunnan over railroad for the sake of time; a flight to Kunming is around 3 hours while a train to Kunming is 26 hours. Time was the limiting factor this trip, and plane > train.  I leave for Kunming from Shanghai, I was supposed to leave at 10pm and arrive at 1am the next time, only to find out that its delayed (remember this term for later). Delayed until when? I don't know.  This is actually works better, then if I could get to Kunming at like 4am or 5am then that saves me a night stay.

The flight eventually starts boarding at 12ish, and take off around 1. I pass out on the plane, and wake up 4 hours later, only to find out that I'm not in Kunming rather Chengdu. We couldn't land in Kunming because of foggy conditions. Again I'm not too angry cause they get us a hotel room and I get to see another city in China sorta. I end up getting to Kunming around 11-12. Destination Arrived 12 hours later.

Biggest problem comes when I have to go back to Shanghai. Yet another "delay." Except when I ask about the delay, the plane is only a little "late." So I ask what's the difference about "late" and "delay," aren't they the same thing? Apparently they aren't the same, late is just a subcategory of on time. Being slightly late is expected for flights in China.

Point of the story. When traveling in China, make sure you have delay time accounted for cause it will happen.

Until next time,

-MC

Reflections on 2013

Happy New Year to everyone back home. 

Last year was an eventful year for me, I'm going to devote this post to reflect on major events that happened to me this year. Let's begin.

First off, I was accepted to Chinese Flagship Capstone year, that why I'm here in China now. I'm actually about to finish the first portion in about a week, just have some loose ends to tie up now. I've made a lot new friends during my stay in China, people who have made a big impact in my life.  I'm a bit sad that I might not see them again until Las Vegas! (Haha, a little inside joke). It was honestly an accident of how I met them. I half-heartedly applied to be in a club and had a horrible interview, but somehow I managed to get picked.  A very happy accident that turned out to be :). 

I guess the second biggest thing that happened was starting a bucket list and actually going through with it.  I ran a marathon, bungie jumped, ate some delicious food. There are still so much more I want to do, I wonder how much more of my bucket list I can scratch off before this year ends.  I'm going to Yunnan on the 13th, so there's another thing I can cross that off. (Oh, also I got back in shape and lost some weight and kept it off. haha)

I would say that I may not be the brightest student at Kelley, but I can say that I've seen more of the world than most students at any university.  I've seen more this past 4 months than I have seen in the past 4 years. I'm very fortunate to have this year to travel and learn from seeing and doing.  You can only learn so much from textbooks.  I only hope that I can see more of the world in this new year.  

I wish everyone a safe and healthy new year.  

Until next time,

MC