China: Shanghai

When we went to bed around 0100 on the ship we could see lights and land. Even our journey from Japan to China we'd see big ships and cargo vessels since we weren't far from land. This was a change.

We had a Diplomatic Briefing at 0815. So Tania and I got up at 0715, showered, and had breakfast. The briefing was somewhat interesting if maybe we'd had 3 more hours of sleep. I probably would have slept during it if I wasn't sitting in the front row. Dean White even called us out for sitting in the front row saying he never sees us sitting there. Nice Dean White.

As soon as the meeting ended Tania and I went immediately back to bed to sleep some more. I fell asleep solidly for about an hour til I was woken up by the loudspeaker telling us we had to go up to Deck 7 to go through immigration if weren't planning on traveling with the ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong. We dragged ourselves up there and collected our passports and waited for the ship to be cleared.

45 minutes later it was all set and we were allowed off. Becca's day managed to get his business to send him to Shanghai, so she met up with him and is spending her whole trip with him. We got to meet him briefly.

Mason, Brandon, Nolan, Tania, Nic, and I tagged along with my adopted brother Chris and 3 girls. We headed to the Bund. It was freeeezing out. They were trying to go to a garden. We had no plans.

The city of Shanghai is gorgeous. It's got some crazy architecture, futuristic. Even more so than Japan.

We're in China for the New Year, which is pretty sweet. We got here for the 2nd or 3rd day. They celebrate for 11 days. The first night is the big one, after that the people leave the cities and head out to stay with families for a week long vacation. Everyone goes back to work after the 7th day. Unfortunately a lot of stuff ends up being closed for the New Year and there aren't as many people in the city. It's still really crowded though. But the people in Shanghai were more touristy. Still Chinese, but some had come to the city for a vacation. There were even white people around who weren't SAS! I felt like we've gotten less stares here than Japan, but I've heard some people say the opposite.

We couldn't find exactly where we were going, but we could still see the ship as we were along the river. The water was murky brown. When we were in the East China Sea it was green instead of blue. Strange.

There were street vendors everywhere selling fried food on sticks. We were told not to eat any of it because we're not used to the bacteria. I don't need to be sick in China.

With a little help we found the garden. It wasn't anything too spectacular since it's winter. But there was a bunch of bamboo in little groves. It took about 5 minutes to walk through. When we finished our walk through we all sat down at 2 tables for tea. I tried jasmine. It was delicious, probably my new favorite tea. But all the leaves and things were floating on top making it hard to drink. I felt like I was licking a tree. In a good way. We decided we wanted to wander, get food, money, and go to the Jade Temple.

We found a few Chinese markets selling all the crazy stuff for the New Year. All the red and gold/yellow decorations. It's the year of the tiger, so there's tiger stuffed animals and cartoons everywhere. It's been in the 40's and, again, all I have is a sweatshirt and fleece. Brandon, Chris, and I all bought sweet winter hats for roughly $5 USD. Best purchase of China so far (and I'm writing this 2 days later). They've got pom poms. Hopefully when I get to Hong Kong in a week I can upload some real pictures to facebook with the free wifi at the port. But I heard facebook is blocked. I'll investigate further later.

It took forever to find a place to exchange currency. ATMs here seem to work versus in Japan. It took almost an hour for 5 people to exchange money. By now it was almost 1530, and the temple closed at 1630. Half of us decided it wasn't worth trying to get there, and we separated to find food.

Upon wandering for 20 minutes we found a restaurant we all agreed on. It seemed like they opened it up for us. It was a huge restaurant, but it was early for dinner so we were the only ones there. Nolan and I shared different types of dumplings and we all ordered fried rice. Everything had meat so Nic couldn't eat anything. The dumplings were so good. This was what I was waiting for. Unfortunately the rice had octopus and Nolan and I hate seafood. We got a few drinks and hung out for awhile.

I had no idea where we were, luckily the boys paid attention. We were right by the river and walked back to the ship at 1830. We decided we'd all shower, change, and chill before going out at 2000.

We ran into Jeff in the hallway and he told us to check out Cloud 9, it's way up in this building on the 86th (I think) floor. He said it was definitely worth checking out and it wouldn't be overrun with SAS people. With no real plan this sounded cool. Nolan bailed to get a hotel with some other people for the night. So the 5 of us got a cab. It was a longer ride than I would have guessed, but the tunnel running under the river was closed in that direction.

We somehow managed to find our way up the 3 or 4 elevators. They asked Tania if she was 20. Haha. First time anyone's even been asked since Hawaii. They sat us away from the window, but the view looked spectacular. We ordered a round of drinks. They were all pretty good, but weak.

We saw a group leaving a table by the window and asked if we could move. They said sure. The view was craaaaazy awesome. You could even see the ship from the window. I think I posted a picture on facebook. It was so romantic and obviously made me even more thrilled to be 5th wheeling. Only kind of. Not really. We hung out and ordered another round. This place was way classy and expensive. A few other SAS people cycled through. Holly and Jason came and gave us the name of a bar/club to meet at that was supposed to be good. Baby Face. We got the address and headed out.

It was a quick cab ride to the area that the bar was supposedly in. The cab driver didn't seem to know much though. He dropped us off. We asked someone where it was and told us it was closed. Or maybe it hadn't openned yet. I don't know. Either way we couldn't go. It might have been closed for the New Year. So we decided to get another drink and get some McDonalds.

McDonalds in China DOES NOT ACCEPT CREDIT CARD. Seriously. I did find cash on me. I got a cheeseburger and fries. They were sooo good. I don't know if they're better here or if it was just because I hadn't had McDonalds/a good fast food burger in awhile. Either way: McDonalds=spectacularity at its finest.

We were pretty exhausted and Mason and I had to get up early the next day to leave for Xi'an so we caught a cab back to the ship. We were back by 0100. Pretty early. I was so stoked to go to bed. After I finished packing...