China Update #2 – Flight & Shanghai

Ahhh! I’m back in America! I arrived yesterday morning (the 4th of July) and am so excited to be back in a free country again where simply accessing and reading a blog is allowed! The first thing I did when I arrived, before even bringing in my luggage, was to hang up my American Flag on my front porch.

So now I can finally talk about my trip. I was unable to access my blog while in China, and have a lot of catching up to do. On the flight over, we were told stories about people being taken from flights and quarantined for having a fever or being near someone with a fever. When we landed, we were not allowed to get up out of our seats, but had to wait and be “screened” for the swine flu. Now there have only been 13 deaths in the US from the new swine flu, and there have been 13,000 deaths during the same time period from the regular flu. Nevertheless, I think this is a front of the Chinese government to make a good face to the Chinese people.

So as soon as we landed, the plane was boarded by a crew dressed in what looks like hazmat gear.  We all had to sit and wait until they took everyone’s temperature with a gun that they’d shine on your forehead (pictured below).  I took these images with my iPhone.

It turned out that a member of our photographic group (Sandy “Sam” Puc of Colorado) that was on another plane was taken and quarantined, not for having a fever, but for being within a certain amount of rows of someone that had a fever.  After leaving the plane, guards came to her hotel and took her and her kids to an old abandoned hotel in China and kept prisoner there under guard for seven days.  This hotel had brown water, mice, no beds, and they were given little to no food or toilet paper.  They weren’t allowed outside contact and couldn’t receive food or anything else from the outside.  A horrible situation to say the least.  We were so grateful when she could finally rejoin us.

After landing in Shanghai, David Trust, the CEO of the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) took me to see his tailor.  I had been awake and flying for over 24 hours, but was so excited to meet his tailor and get a suit made.  We wanted to get an early start on the suit so that it could be done before we left Shanghai so that I could have it to speak in later that week.

I had a hard time narrowing down what material I liked and ended up getting THREE suits!  It was so much fun!  I also had four custom dress shirts made too and all of it was ready for me the next day before we left Shanghai!  After being measured for a suit, we went to eat and then headed back to the hotel to get caught up on some sleep.

This is the hotel greeter, Stephanie, that says hi when you arrive (above) and here is a pano image of my hotel room below.  This place was way hip and totally loaded with amenities  There was even hidden jacks at the desk were I could plug my laptop into the TV and watch movies from my laptop on the large screen.  There is also a large window on the far right of this image that opens up into the very cool bathroom.

This image below is the view from the hotel lobby.  Most of the time when walking through this lobby, there was live music.  When I took this image, the music was being created by this woman playing a stringed instrument.

The next day we hung out in Shanghai and later that afternoon did a little shopping.  I was looking for interesting colors, textures and faces, and here are some of the images I created that day.

I was amazed at the poverty that was everywhere, even a stone’s throw from our fabulous and clean hotel.  People were making, cooking, selling and eating food in some very dirty situations, right on the street!

And as you can see from this image below, people were living in very cramped situations.

I also took some very fun and very fast cab rides that were sooo cool!  I’ve always wanted to drive the way these guys drove!  Man!  Just like a video game!

The next morning we caught a Chinese domestic flight from Shanghai to Jinan, the place of the PPA PhotoAsia conference.  I’ll put more on that in the next post…..