100 Yuan

2017 July 18

My flight left the ground from Chicago O’Hare yesterday afternoon and touched me down fourteen and a half hours later at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China. It was actually not a bad flight at all. We got three meals, the lavatories smelled amazing, and for such a long flight in economy, I only felt like I had deep vein thrombosis once. However, what really made the flight was the man I had the pleasure of sitting next to. His name is Ollie, and he is a super energetic middle-aged guy originally from Iceland. He had done a mix of software engineering, then consulting, then took up doing freelance work as he traveled around the world, never staying in one place for too long. He was on his way to Manila in the Philippines and told me that the Philippines took his top slot for favorite places he’s been in the world, just above Cambodia and the Dominican Republic. We talked a lot, then about halfway through the flight I took a nap and he blasted through a quadruple-feature of comedy movies, laughing almost the entire time.

I landed around 6:00pm Shanghai time, which was 5:00am St. Louis time, and made my way to immigration, where there are rows and rows of LED signs that read ‘Foreigners’. I filled out the yellow arrival slip and finally convinced the immigration staff that I was just staying one night in mainland and taking off for Hong Kong tomorrow. He stamped me a one-day visa on my passport, I picked up my bag at the carousel, and I managed to find directions to the airport hotel on my very first try asking someone. I quickly headed over, checked in, got my room key for room 6211, headed up to the sixth floor, and walked every hallway until I realized the 6 isn’t significant and that my room was actually on the second floor. I finally made it and showered off, but then I was starving. It was early enough and I didn’t want room service, so I ventured back out to the terminals in search of some solid dinner.

I see a McDonald’s, but I wanted something I couldn’t get in the US. So I kept walking and found a place with no English name and with an entirely Chinese menu, which is just what I wanted. So I tried to ask if they would take a credit card, but they spoke no English, and I don’t speak Chinese. So I pulled out my credit card and pointed to it, and they shook their heads and rubbed their fingers together to let me know I needed cash. Thinking that I may have just gotten unlucky, I walked back to the McDonald’s, but I got the same response. I figured no worries! I could just purchase some Yuan at the currency exchange, so I walked across the Terminal to the exchange, but the ladies there could only exchange bills for bills. It then really hit me that I should have done my due diligence with this money thing in places where I didn’t speak or read the language.

Luckily they spoke enough english to understand my asking where the nearest ATM was, and they helpfully told me straight down the hall and to the left, making a hand motion to the right. So I walked to the other end of the terminal again, and looked in every right and left nook with no luck. At the security post for Terminal 2, I asked one of the guards for some help, and he began asking me a lot of questions in Chinese, so I pulled out the Google Translate app. I take back anything negative I’ve ever implied about this app. It saved me and worked like magic. I pressed the button for talking back and forth, and we were able to have a laggy but completely awesome and helpful conversation about where the ATMs were. He was laughing and let me through the security post, which I really wasn’t supposed to be crossing, and waved to the others to let me through, saying something that probably meant ‘let this lost foreigner through, he has no idea what he’s doing.’ Once through, I walk to the other end of Terminal 2 before bracing myself to converse with another agent through Translate, and I start talking to the app when the agent, a little offended, told me he spoke perfect English. He told me the ATMs were one more floor up and to the right against the wall, and sure enough they were. After some guesswork I was able to change the language to English on the machine, and it accepted my debit card. At this point, my stomach was grumbling loud enough for others to hear, and I withdrew 100 Yuan, enough for tonight, a breakfast in the morning before my flight to Hong Kong, and a meal or two on my return trip. 100 Yuan gets spit out, and I just run into the first Burger King I see and buy a double whopper with Chinese cash. Easily one of the most rewarding burgers I’ve ever had.

I’m pooped.