Hong Kong/Sea Day/ Shanghai

April 1st – 3rd
Hong Kong/Sea Day/Shanghai

The first was my last visit to Hong Kong before changing home ports further north to Shanghai. Unfortunately, my last day wasn’t anything spectacular. To begin, the sail away time was about and hour sooner, meaning I had less time in port. But, I didn’t think it’d be that much of a problem as I was simply hoping to get online, do my needed work, and get back to the ship. After talking to some of my friends, someone told me that there was an area in the mall connected to the terminal that had free WiFi, so I got off the ship in the hopes of locating this hot spot…which didn’t work out so well. I walked all through the mall looking for areas, non of which had WiFi and/or were free. Well, me being determined to save that extra dollar, wouldn’t settle for anything less than free internet, so I decided to go to my usual place at the mall across the river.
It was kind of a crummy day, cold and foggy, slight rain from time to time, and I’m crossing the river in a T-shirt. It wasn’t comfortable, but I didn’t care, I was on my internet mission. So I got to the mall to sit down in the same café I always go to for internet, open my computer, get on the signal, and find that it’s taking 10 minutes to load my internet page. That wasn’t going to do, so I packed up and figured I could find another place in this huge mall. The place where I always stopped was the first place I tried on my first visit to Hong Kong, so I figured if I could get lucky on the first attempt in a totally unfamiliar place, I’ve got to be able to find somewhere if I actually try, right? Well, there was nothing. I walked around that mall for hours, and nothing had wireless, and the places that did were packed and I wasn’t going to force my way in to steal internet. It got to the point where I was running out of time and decided to just head back to the ship and try the other mall once more. Again, nothing really seemed to turn up. But then, right before I got on the ship again, I tried a place where I saw some other people sitting with their computers (a place I had tried maybe 3 hours before), and this time it worked! So for the last 30 minutes before I had to get back on the ship, I caught up with all these posts, took care of my bills, did my emails, and was able to do most everything I needed to. I was kind of mad that it took so long before I could get online anywhere, but hey, at least it worked out in the end. Then I got back on the ship, played the welcome aboard shows, and that’s about it.
The 2nd was nothing special, most of the day was spent reading. I’ve passed my halfway point in my 800 Andrew Carnegie Biography I bought last Hong Kong, so that gets me excited. Otherwise, I just had two big band sets that night, and that’s about it.
The 3rd will be about equally eventful as the 2nd. Though we’re in Shanghai today, the actual city is so far away that it’s not worth getting off the ship unless you can make a day of it, which I can’t today. I’m just hanging around right now doing my reading and working on my tax forms to send back home. I have the day off today, aside from boat drill, so I’ll just try to be productive on my own today. We start cruises today to Japan and Korea though, so I’m really excited for that. Anyways, I’ll keep up writing as long as you keep up reading, thanks!