48 hours later...

I stayed up all night on Friday, September 2nd, not even sleeping for a minute, as I was finishing up my graduate school application to University of Hawaii and fellowship application to the adjacent East-West Center research institute. I figured that my tiredness would allow me to sleep on my 12:30 pm flight the next day to Shanghai. My parents and I left the house in Orem, Utah at 5:30 am on Saturday, September 3rd and drove to the Salt Lake City airport, chatting about the week (playing badminton and swimming in the hot springs were the highlights for me) and my aspirations for the future. After saying our goodbyes, I went through security and relaxed at the gate.  

My Dad, my mom and me saying our goodbyes at the ticket counter.

At the drop-off area at 5 am, walking to the ticket counter with all my heavy luggage!

I flew to Las Vegas first and when I arrived at the gate I immediately noticed that 1.) there were slot machines in the airport, and 2.) there were at least 15 Chinese people waiting at the gate. I wondered if they were also flying to LAX to get the same flight as me to Shanghai. So I sat at the gate and surfed the Internet while I waited. The gate attendant then announced that our flight was delayed, but not to worry because all connections were good. A timid Chinese girl approached the desk and explained that she didn't think there would be enough time to transfer at LAX with the hour delay, but the attendant assured her that everything would be fine. Our plane ended up leaving the gate around 1 hour and 15 minutes late, but I remained calm despite worrying that I might lose my luggage with such a short time to transfer. After we landed, the other Chinese people on my flight anxiously got up and immediately started gathering their luggage, despite the flight attendant insisting that they stay in their seats until the seat belt light is turned off. Noticing how rushed the Chinese passengers were, I again wondered if they were also worried about making their 12:30 flight to Shanghai, but their behavior was nothing unusual for a Chinese person anxious about getting in the front of a hurried mob. Then I turned on my cell phone. It was 12:15 already. I mistakenly thought that we would change time zones from Las Vegas to LAX, and didn't realize that there was literally no time to catch a 12:30 flight. 

I rushed off to try and catch the plane anyway and ran to a Delta counter, showing them my boarding pass and explaining the situation. They directed me to the international terminal and I ran from terminal 5 to 3. I arrived, panting and sweating, at 12:20 to discover I would have to go through security again. I showed the TSA agent my Delta boarding pass and she said that the "boarding pass" Delta had given me was no good and I would actually have to obtain a boarding pass from China Eastern Air, the operating air carrier on the flight. They directed me to the counter and sure enough, I found the group of 15 anxious Chinese people from my flight insisting that they needed a boarding pass from China Eastern and about to miss their flight. The attendant at China Eastern refused to give them boarding passes. I asked them if they were on the same flight as me and we compared boarding passes. It turned out that all 18 of us were on the same flight to Shanghai and given the same "fake" boarding passes from Delta. I negotiated with the attendant, and she insisted that we return to terminal 5 and get real boarding passes from Delta. By that time it was 12:22—all 18 of us had officially missed our flight to Shanghai.

A nice, young couple came with me to terminal 5 to talk to Delta while the rest of the group stayed behind at China Eastern. After waiting in 3 different lines and being redirected to different desks, I finally talked to someone about my situation. She said the earliest she could get me to Shanghai would be on a flight leaving from Atlanta on Sunday morning. I accepted, as I am required to register at Nanjing University on September 5 or 6 and a longer delay would cause serious bureaucratic problems for me. So she told me my bags will be re-routed and issued me a meal voucher and a new ticket: a red-eye flight to Atlanta at 11:45 pm and a flight to Shanghai out of Atlanta (over the North Pole) at 9:55 am. Yes, I backtracked, but at least the flight went over the North Pole (instead of the Pacific Ocean) this time.

I had about 10 hours until my flight departed. I took my time going through security and got a crispy Ranch BLT at McDonald's to sooth my racing heart. After lunch, I realized I had to take a shuttle bus (due to construction at LAX) to terminal 6, where my gate was located. I found the shuttle, waited 15 minutes, and found my gate. I settled in for a long day ahead of me and called my friend Becky to tell her what happened. After exchanging stories about how stressed out we are (Becky just got hired as a legal assistant in DC and is still trying to find an apartment) I reached into my backpack to pull out my laptop, only to discover that it was gone. My heart jumped into my throat and I said breathlessly in the phone, "Becky, my laptop is gone. I think I left it at security."

So I ran back through terminal 6, waited for the shuttle, rode the shuttle, and ran through terminal 5 back to the security checkpoint. None of the TSA agents would talk to me until I walked back through the "No re-entry after this point" zone. So I went through, explained the situation, and they told me to go through security again and talk to the agent sitting behind the desk at the front end. I went through security, and the agent on duty stopped me. There was something suspicious in my bag that I guess they hadn't seen earlier. He searched my entire suitcase, and then looked into the front pocket- the suspicious item was a travel alarm clock. So they ran it through the X-rays again, and he came back telling me I'm free to go. So I went to the "front desk" and explained the situation: I had come through security an hour earlier, but had stacked the plastic bins on top of one another and left my laptop in the one on the bottom. He shook his head. No one had turned in a laptop, he said, but he suggested that I look through a stack of bins at the lane I had gone through an hour earlier.

I looked through the stack of bins and sure enough, my laptop was sitting there in one of the bins at the bottom. A huge smile broke out on my face and I felt so relieved, I just wanted to collapse right there on the floor. Instead, I thanked the officers and put the laptop back in my backpack. So I relaxed in terminal 5 for a few hours and I actually crossed off about 5 things on my Google "To Do" list that I had meaning to do but just didn't have the time to do it until I had 10 hours on my hands. Finally, I got back on the shuttle to terminal 6, went in the bathroom and brushed my teeth, took out my contacts and got ready for my flight. I went to my gate and read. A couple hours later, I saw a gate attendant and figured I should just ask him and check up on my bags to make sure they were found.

I showed him my boarding pass and he looked up my flight itinerary. He said, "You know you're in the wrong terminal, right? Your gate was changed a couple hours ago. You're flying out of terminal 5 now." Lucky break, huh? He then looked up my bags and said, "Your bags are being re-routed through Japan and will arrive in Shanghai at 9:30 pm on Monday (8 hours after I was scheduled to arrive). My jaw dropped and I asked him if there's anyway they can have my bags come with me on my flights so that I don't have to wait for 8 hours at the airport for my bags. He said sure, and called a bag attendant, who told him that they can't find my bags. He said to me, "Yeah, they can't find your bags, but I think they're being re-routed through Japan." I kind of gave him a desperate look and he said, "Well that guy didn't really sound like he knew what he was talking about, let me call a different bag room." He called a second bag room and they said my bags are nowhere to be found. The bag ticket was in the system as going through Japan, but my actual bags had not been tagged yet. So he asked her if she could look outside for the bags and call him back. I sat back down and 5 minutes later she called to let him know that she found my bags and assured me they would re-route them through Atlanta so they would arrive in Shanghai with me.

I took the shuttle back to terminal 5, found the right gate this time, and started getting loopy because it had been 42 hours since I had last slept at this point: (picture evidence of my beautiful face)

18-hours into my trip, still in LA

 I boarded my 4 hour flight to Atlanta and slept the entire time between two old men.

Here is a picture of me in Atlanta at 7:30 am on Sunday, September 4th: 

24-hours into my trip, in Atlanta waiting for my flight to Shanghai

Yes, I did eat an entire box of Kashi TLC soft oatmeal dark chocolate chips cookies during my trip. Don't judge. I needed to soothe myself after all the adrenaline pumping through my veins from the laptop incident.

To make a long story short, because this story is long enough already, I power through my 15-hour flight to Shanghai, go to baggage claim and wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...and eventually everyone left except for me standing there anxiously chewing my fingernails (and I never chew on my fingernails. Except when I'm extremely anxious apparently).

I went to the Delta counter and explained that I thought my bags were lost. They looked up my information on the computer and said, "Oh yes, we can see your itinerary here. Your bags were re-routed through Japan and will arrive at 9:30 pm tonight."

I opted to have them bring my bags to me in Nanjing the next day and left for the subway. I really can't complain because 1.) This way I didn't have to carry my heavy bags on the train from Shanghai to Nanjing, and 2.) Nothing, and I mean nothing, can top Amy's lost luggage story, when the airline lost her luggage on her flight to Spain in December 2009 and she had to travel around Europe with us with only one outfit and no toiletries while worrying that they were going to send her luggage back to Denver.

Anyway, I bought my train tickets, rode the train to Nanjing while the guy sitting next to me talked on his cell phone about having to sit next to a foreigner on the train, arrived in Nanjing and got a taxi, called my flatmate, and arrived HAPPILY at my new apartment at 7:30 pm local time on Monday, September 5th. Accounting for all time zone changes, my entire trip took me exactly 48 hours from start to finish.

TL;DR: Missed my connecting flight in LAX to Shanghai, almost forgot/lost my laptop in security, almost missed my second flight out of LAX because of a gate change, and Delta lost my luggage. All in all, it was a good day because I didn't have to carry my luggage on the train.