Posts From China - Wuxi
This week finished well at Wuxi with several technical successes. The federation services with "Microsoft in the Cloud" finally came together with no nagging little errors and a couple of other small things I had been unable to get to were rather easily solved when I finally got to them. So I think everyone involved would judge the overall trip a success. Brad and Kevin took me to a Mexican food place downtown that turned out to be the best I have had in China. The manager worked at the international school while making plans for the restaurant, so he made it a point to visit our table. I had never been to that old district of Wuxi, and would have enjoyed walking along the canal if it hadn't been raining and blowing. The last day of goodbyes is always hard for me since I get so emotional.
The two and a half hour ride to Shanghai airport was a delight since one of the new teachers was also going. She is from the US and her dad is a Korean immigrant pastor. She was going to Seoul to work out some visa problems which can not be dealt with once you get into China. For the last year, China has been making long-term visa processing much more difficult—many times that happens when one country retaliates as the other one decides to make some change.
So the final adventure of the trip was in Newark airport. I had a temporary day-pass to the United lounge for my three hour lay-over. The last ones to leave the lounge were myself and couple of Princeton students. We walked out at the time printed on the boarding passes for 'boarding time'. It was less than 100 yards to the gate, so we were standing there within a couple of minutes of appointed time. There was absolutely no activity around our gate. At ten minutes before departure, I walked to the agent and asked what was happening and she told me I had just missed the flight—the door was already closed! As I start walking away toward the service desk in a daze, the students realized what was happening and asked me if I knew what had happened? The gate agent insisted she followed all announcement rules and had paged all three who were missing. We think what happened is they boarded early and by the time we got to the gate, everyone was already in the long jet-way out to the small plane. So, after attempting to get on other planes to Greenville and Charlotte, I spent a very short night at the nearby Ramada Inn and left on the 08:25 Wednesday. The service desk lady who helped me was so very kind and really worked a miracle to just get me re-booked on the busiest flying day of the year! When she heard my story, I think she might have made me a part of her family for the holiday if she hadn't gotten me out.
