Day 1 - Shell China Trip

Day 1
After arriving at Changi Airport at 2pm, my family and I checked in the "express lane" while everyone else had to follow the group. It seems a family and church friend had helped us book the tickets online.

All of the Shell Sponsored trips that I had been on meant that we would be changing hotels everyday. However, on this trip, to make way for shopping, the itenary was changed so that the last 2 days of this 7(really 6) day trip(11th May NIGHT - 17th May NIGHT) would be spent in the same hotel.

We then went to eat lunch in this Thai restaurant while I sat there and waited for them to finish. I didn't want to eat cuz eating before a flight only made me want to fart. I theorise that the more-than-normal amount of gas produced by my inefficient stomach is enough such that when it expands when reaching higher altitudes(albeit expanding very little), it fills my stomach and intestines such that farting in inevitable. My corollary theory is that as the intestines expand, it makes it easier for any waste to travel down to the exit which also explains why when I refuse to "release the pressure" while in a plane, I get crippling stomach aches after.


Anyway, after the 6 hr flight and enjoying the oh-so-beautiful KrisWorld(SIA Inflight Entertainment System), i.e. watching shows like Big Momma's House 2, Syrianna, and a number of TV Comedies, we finally arrived at the Shanghai Airport at about 11pm.

Lemme tell you. I was shocked. After those years of "education" in schools about how communists shared everything and were generally very poor, I must say that the airport looked completely opposite of what I had been told(or was led to believe) commies live like...

So I did what any good tourist would do and took photos of their insanely spacious airport(except for their travelators).

After moving to the ground floor in a lift of insanely large proportions (Could fit around 15ppl with their luggage [1.5-2 bags per person]), we were greeted by 16°C of cold air.

With a slight wind blowing, I was beginning to get a bit chilly. I don't know if it was the cold or if I was just simply excited, but I couldn't stop grinning.

(External Image - Roads on the opposite side of the airport to what is being described below.)

The roads leading to (and away from) the airport were beautiful. Clean and neat with curving lateral arches of raised roads crossing over each other, some high, some low, but all over a big beautiful lake.

The roads were empty which served to indicate that the Chinese don't really hang out much late at night. At least not nationally.

Two things about the roads here was this.
1 - The overhead green signboards were not unlike Singapore's, albeit in Mandarin(presumably).
2 - The second thing is that the Chinese drive on the right side of the road, like the States.

Our tour guide was a Mandarin speaking man. Unfortunately, many of us didn't fully understand what he was saying, either because of his twang (albeit only slight), or because we didn't really speak Mandarin.

So our Singapore Guide, P. S. Goh, translated for us.
He said: "Tmr's wake up call will be at 6.30am. After breakfast, we'll then check out at 8am." Everyone in the bus groaned. China is the same as Singapore time by the way so that meant that we would be losing precious sleeping time.

Goh then reminded us that we had to look Left, then Right, then Left again instead of the opposite that we do in Singapore.


Most of us retired to our beds almost immediately upon reaching the hotel. Some others went to the nearby shops for a glance. Others ate steak till about 3am.

So that's how the day ended.

Part 1 of 7