I think I know now what it’s like to go through a whirlwind. Teresa and I just got home from a trip to China to perform as the closing act at the Westlake International Magic Conference in Hangzhou. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having never been to China before, but the city, the convention, the people, and the country exceeded my wildest expectations. But lets start at the beginning.
To say the start of the trip was a little rocky would be an understatement. Teresa, our assistant Rocky Mejia and I flew into the Vancouver airport on the 5th of November. We were scheduled to have a 2 hour layover and then fly directly to Shanghai. All was good til we got to the check-in counter only to be told that the paperwork we had wasn’t a valid visa. After much discussion and phone calls to China (where it was 2:00 in the morning) we realized there was no way we were getting on the plane. Instead we had to race to downtown Vancouver to the Chinese Embassy and then to the Chinese Visa office to try to do the impossible – get a visa in 24 hours.
We were phoning back and forth to China (now 4:00 am there – sorry Elaine), getting faxes and emails, arranging more documentation and relying on the help of the awesome staff at the visa office. We finally submitted all the documents shortly after 4:00pm (close of day for the office) and went to find a hotel room and some food. Amazingly the next morning at 9:00 am when I got back to the Visa office – they were done. I couldn’t believe it.
I called Teresa and Rocky and told them to check out and meet me (with the luggage at the airport). I tried calling Air Canada to make sure we could get on the noon flight but the wait time was too long. I got to the airport about 10:00, stood in line for what seemed like an hour and incredibly there was room on the flight. We got the new tickets, Teresa and Rocky arrived with the luggage and we raced to security. Once through we had little time to get to our gate and board the plane for the 12 hour flight. And then we arrived in Shanghai.
- Rocky, Teresa and Me – Finally on the plane!
This was an awesome plane. Each seat had a touch screen with movies, tv shows, games, documentaries and more. I think I watched 5 movies during the flight 🙂 And then after a crazy 24 hours of chasing after our visas, and 12 hours on a plane we arrived in Shanghai.
I think most people my age would be a little apprehensive about going to China. We grew up with the understanding that it was a communist country and the people controlled by the party and the military. I expected it to be very strict, possibly somewhat cold (attitude wise) and a lot more drab. Instead we went through the easiest and quickest Customs/Immigration that I can remember and stepped into a modern, fast, friendly and beautiful country. We only saw a bit of Shanghai thru the window of a cab but it was definitely a very modern city. I thought perhaps that being a smaller and lesser known city, Hangzhou wouldn’t be as nice. Boy was I wrong. In fact except for the beautiful Temples and the more traditional architecture here and there that reminded you of “old” China, you could have been in any modern city anywhere in the world. And in 5 days of travelling and performing there – I saw less military and security guards than I do at home.
Now it was time for the convention…