I've arrived!

It was probably my luck to be sitting at the seat where the space below the seat in front had the panel collapse that an engineer had to be called out to fix it before take off. People looked a bit alarmed when the engineer came back with some duct tape to fix the problem as he was lying across the floor...

There was some good entertainment on the plane and I watched The Hangover part 2; it was ok but I think I preferred the first one, Johnny English Reborn; again I prefer the first one and I didn't actually get to the end of the movie before giving up, Bridesmaids; ok but not as funny as I thought it would be but a good performance by Chris O'Dowd ^^

The food was pretty awful and they ran out of beef so I was given what they called Hainan Chicken and fried rice which was about 4 pieces of chicken in a gravy with spices and fat rice like risotto that had peas and carrots and a curry taste....

Breakfast was a little better but not by much and I had a "full" English breakfast.

The plane arrived early and the airport was fairly empty. I had no problem getting a taxi. Starting price is 14.00rmb which is about £1.40 (roughly just need to remove a 0). For anyone thinking of going by taxi it is a really crazy and rough ride. Drivers in Shanghai don't signal, swerve in lanes, and constantly have a hand on the horn. A lot of books I read say to write the number of the taxi which you find on the panel behind the drivers seat. Also you can find the number of the driver and his ID in the front seat.

Don't ever get into unmarked taxis as these are private run and have no meter or they are scams. These taxis won't have a sign on the top and aren't as brightly coloured as government owned taxis.

However, you can take the Maglev for a discounted price if you show your flight ticket to the Maglev office. That is a really fast train that works by magnetic levitation and runs at about 400kmph. It takes about 5-10 minutes to the city centre as opposed to 45-60 mins by taxi (depending on rush hour).

Cost door to door was about 200rmb (£20). It also helped to have the address written down as despite what books say, most Chinese people don't understand English. I arrived and the security guard was meant to give me the flat key, luckily I could understand him but found it difficult to respond correctly but managed to communicate and he helped me bring my suitcases up.

It did turn out my housemate made a mistake and told the man I was from America which is what threw me off when he opened the front door for me. The flat is nice and will take some getting used to.

Currently there are fireworks and fire crackers to celebrate Chinese New Year which will be going on until the 15th which is annoying as it is really loud and has been going on and off since around 12pm! It's also very cold here and has been raining all day. This time I'm finding jet lag catching up on me but luckily now it is getting late enough to sleep.

I managed to go out locally to get some snacks and drinks as I knew I didn't want to go back out today. After talking to my housemates and I'm getting a better idea of what is around here.

Tomorrow I aim to find the Carrefour, get supplies and get a phone.


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