The Flight - July 1st

By the time the last place team was in the airport shuttle, the members of Cheng Dui had not even woken up yet. This would become very helpful once it was followed by almost 24 hours of no sleep. The 15-hour plane ride was not as terrible as you might think, but a select group from our trip decided that they would keep their windows open during sleeping hours and congregate in certain areas to have two-hour long discussions about whatever they pleased. Were there people all around them trying to sleep? Yes. Did those having the conversations notice? Who knows. Nevertheless, I was able to get a nice 20 minutes of sleep over the course of the entire flight. After a few hours of flying north into Canada, wherever that is, we changed directions due to intense turbulence that spanned over our route. Originally, we were planned to fly west over the United States while hugging the North Pole, but we then switched to flying east, over Iceland, Greenland, Europe, and finally dropped down through Russia and into China. I think this change only added an extra 20 or 30 minutes to our flight time. The second I got off the plane, I could feel the intense humidiy of Shanghai. We went through customs as a group with no issue, and the same when reclaiming our luggage. The real fun began the second we stepped into the Domestic Check-in Terminal - we were told that our flight to Xiamen had been cancelled, likely due to weather. I couldn't beleive what I was hearing. After a 15 hour flight, all I wanted was the rewarding feeling of arriving at our final destination. I know how airports work, and I immediately realized two things: 1) getting upset would solve NOTHING, and 2) it was not likely that the problem could be fixed with any ease. So, we all took a seat with our luggage in the center of the concourse -  perhaps the most inconvenient place in the terminal. Even though we were all hangry (hungry + angry = hangry, it's a real thing - look it up) and tired, there is no group of people that I would rather be stuck with than this one. Everyone figured out how to make the best of the situation. After almost seven hours of sitting on the floor of an airport, I could see everyone was struggling with the fatigue, and everyone was dealing with it differently. Some just shut their eyes and allowed the exhaustion to take over, while others, myself included, fought the urge to sleep. Honestly, I have no idea why I chose to stay up, but I really didn't want to miss out on anything. After all, it was already three days into the trip and time felt precious.