Review of United flight from Shanghai to Newark in Economy

FIXED REPORT! Sorry about the photos not working last time!!
Well here we are! The much awaited finale! I apologize for the delay, my computer has been acting up… A reminder of the routing:
4/10/15: UA89 EWR-PEK (http://flight-report.com/en/report-10026.html)
4/14/15: Beijing to Xi'an on a train (this isn't train report haha)
4/16/15: MU5021 XIY-TAO (http://flight-report.com/en/report-10032.html)
4/19/15: MU5514 TAO-SHA (http://flight-report.com/en/report-10057.html)
4/20/15: UA87 PVG-EWR (THIS REPORT)
First, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on my time in China, and share some pictures. If you're not interested, just scroll right past, there'll be planes eventually :).
What an amazing experience. It's so interesting to get out of my stereotypical American lifestyle in my stereotypical American town, and see new parts of the world. China really is so unique. Everyone seems to be so friendly, you can strike up a conversation with a taxi driver like you've known him for 10 years (someone translated for me). Everything is SO cheap! A 12oz sprite for only 5 yuan (less than a dollar)! Then again, we learned in Beijing that 1 square meter is $30,000, so maybe not. I'm really lucky to be able to travel to so many different places in the world, and it's something I really recommend to everyone, even if it means being without cell phone service for 10 days ;) Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

I couldn't resist putting this in, this was in a mall. Why don't we have these in America?? lol

Anyways, onto the planes. 3:25pm seems like a weird time for a flight, but it just prevailed for a lazy morning. We hung out at our hotel until around 10:00, then went to lunch, and took a bus to the airport afterwords. Pudong is SO far away from the city. Our restaurant was in the city center, and it was over an hour journey.
Scenes from the bus ride

We arrived at the airport around 13:00, 2.5 hours ahead of time.

Pudong is just like every other airport we saw. Very open, very clean, and very crowded.

When we got to the check in line, we opted for checking in one by one, and I got very nervous once I saw the line. Here's a good example of a bad thing about United. There were 10 check in counters for First, Business, Star Alliance people, Mileage Plus people, etc etc etc, AND ONLY 5 FOR ECONOMY! How does this make any sense. Anyways, check in took forever, we weren't airside until 14:30.

We walked over to gate 65 to find out lovely Star Alliance 777-200ER, only 5 years old! I checked the reg, N76021, turns out it's the same Star Alliance plane I saw on the way out (see my report from EWR to PEK)
I can't describe how much fun I had spotting in Shanghai. T2 has an amazing view of the runways and taxiways, and I saw tons of new airlines.

Our flight was at gate 65, the star alliance plane in view was ours, I couldn't get any closer, but still a great view regardless!

We boarded, again with United's boarding group lines. It was really chaotic, as the roped off sections for each line weren't long enough, so everyone sort of merged into one blob (Oh hey, an SQ A380 photobombed!)

Lots of people had bought drinks for the flight back, but little did they know, there was another security check in the jetway. So much for all the money they'd spent, as all liquids just got taken away. (I luckily avoided this, I had blown the $45 I brought with me on day 1 of the trip…lol whoops). Anyways, we moved along and boarded. It was nice to not have dark, HSBC themed jetway like in America, but instead a nice open one.

Aaaand I settled into 36a for the next (spoiler alert) 16 hours-more on that in a bit. All 4 flights (and the train ride), I managed to switch from an aisle seat to a window. What luck!

As I mentioned earlier, this plane was only 5 years old, and compared to the 16 year old bird I flew out on, you could really tell the difference. The TVs were super responsive, even a different color. The armrests were much slimmer (no remotes here), and there was a single pronged headphone jack (yup, double on the way into China).

I prayed for these seats to stay open, but a Chinese couple settled in next to me, some of the last people to get on board (more on them later as well). Damn. You can see the armrests I mentioned here.

I was in my seat by 3:10, 15 minutes before scheduled departure. An FA came on and announced You can buy an economy plus upgrade right here on board for $248. No way I was gonna pay $250 for 4 extra inches of legroom, I did fine with my 31 inches on the way out, thanks though!
We sat. And we sat. And we sat. It seemed like forever, many of my fellow classmates joked that they had finished a movie before we had even pushed back. This was a bit of an exaggeration. With all the extra time, I did some experimenting with the screen. Again, we had the same phenomenal selection of movies as the way out.

Since there was no remote, pressing the power button under the screen gave these options.

Unfortunately, my screen froze, and I got this screen after I asked a crew member to reset it for me, we he did with a smile. This ended up happening 3 or 4 times throughout the flight, but I didn't mind as the FA was very nice and apologetic about it each time.

This didn't have a negative impact on me, but this is a HUGE minus for international flights. The TVs ONLY work in English, although there are many language options for all of the movies. This made it IMPOSSIBLE for the Chinese couple next to me to do anything! MAJOR FLAW UNITED!! I had to help them out, and eventually got them where they wanted to go.
We didn't end up pushing until 4:15, already 50 minutes late. Luckily, the taxi to runway 34L wasn't too long.

Takeoff (finally) was at 4:33, almost 1 hour 10 minutes late. Yikes. (I'm not complaining though, I got stuck in Gatwick Airport on Christmas Eve once for 17, yes SEVENTEEN hours, only to have my flight cancelled, but that's a story for another day :))
The view we got reminded me of the pictures you see of the TBIT at LAX, so many different airlines!

We went up to 31,000 feet, but I quickly realized that the airshow wasn't working. This was present on all screens…

I only knew what altitude we were at thanks to the wifi. It actually worked on this flight! Access for the entire flight was $17, but access to United.com and a mock airshow was free.

Our first meal came around about 1 hour 20 minutes in. We had the option of either Chicken with Rice or Beef with Potatoes. Since I had the Chicken on the way out, I figured I would try something new (my friend did tell me that the chicken was different from the one we had on the way out…).
The beef itself was good by airline standards, mediocre by all other standards. It also came with veggies, another tasteless salad (although the dressing was nice), an amazing brownie and your typical airline roll. Best of all, there was MAC AND CHEESE. I vowed on my way out I wouldn't have any western food while I was in China and stuck with it, so this was a really nice surprise. Overall, a nice meal.

The above photo's lack of quality can be explained by none other than turbulence. I've never been on such a bumpy flight before. I tried at least 5 times to get a clear picture, but each time… *Click* *BUMP* I eventually gave up. The captain came on and said (these are exact words) Sorry about the bumps folks…we should be able to find some clear air in about *pause* 3 hours. I laughed at a while for that. At one particularly bumpy point, I put both hands up in the air, which got a few chuckles from some people around me.

I watched another movie, and once it was over, the airshow had started to work. You can see by the map where it finally kicked in.

I tried really hard to stay awake until the second meal (snack) came around, but I conked out. When I awoke, the Chinese couple pointed at it sitting on my tray table. It had come somewhere between 4 and 7 hours into the flight, probably closer to the latter. This was probably the best meal I had on a plane the entire flight. A mini sandwich, banana crisps, and an Oreo wafer thing that I had seen lots of in China, but never in America. Yum!

We went up to 39,000 feet and I went to sleep again. I got about 9 hours of sleep total on this flight, a new record for me haha.
The third round of food came around about (what should've been) 1 hour 30 minutes before landing (keep reading to understand).
We had a choice of Eggs or Noodles. Noodles for me- it was noodles with more beef, green tasteless veggies and a greasy pastry with the tiniest dash of cream in the center.

We started descending at 6:15, about 25 minutes before our scheduled time of arrival. We had made up some time, but not a lot. The captain came on and announced it's gonna get bumpy again. Yay! I actually really like turbulence, makes it more exciting.

We went down and down, approaching to runway 22L. It was mega foggy with almost no visibility. I didn't even see the lights of the runway when I heard the engines starting to whirr again. My initial thought was Oh crap, we're pulling an 'Asiana at San Francisco', our pilot screwed up the approach because of the lack of visibility. Then I heard the gear go up. Go around!! I'd never experience one before, so this was really cool for me. We were back up above the clouds, resequenced ourselves, and landed uneventfully on runway 22L at 7:25, 40 minutes late. The delay wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the go around, but in all honesty, I think it was worth it. After a short taxi to the gate, we hooked up to the jetway at 7:31.
Last view of our plane

Woah, just realized as I'm writing this that we departed from Shanghai from gate 65, and arrived at Newark at gate 65. Cool!
Thanks so much for reading this, and my first full set of flight reports! Comments are always welcomed :)
I could be going to Europe this summer, but if not, definitely somewhere over the winter. Look out for new flight reports!