Shanghai

April 13th
Shanghai

Today was the first day that I actually had a good chance to get off the ship and get into Shanghai. Unlike our other turnaround ports, the actual city is a good distance from where we dock, meaning the only way to get into the city is via a crew shuttle, and that’s what I did at 9:30 this morning.
One of my friends here on the ship had lived in Shanghai/China for 9 years, meaning I wanted to hang with him to experience the city from a local’s perspective. Along with my friend Mario came Andres and the Doctor, the same two guys I saw Danang with a couple weeks ago. We all took a taxi into a part of the city that was more traditional in design and architecture, and was absolutely packed with people. The area was amazing though, and the traditional Chinese buildings were gorgeous, it was a great area to walk through. We quickly found somewhere to eat, and Mario was able to order us something more indicative of the culture…not sweet and sour chicken. We ended up with this great tofu dish topped with what I was informed were rotten eggs buried in soil for 6 months, a bamboo dish, Lotus root, pig foot soup, a wanton soup, and some odd chicken dish. There might have been more, but that’s what comes to mind right now, and let me say, it was all great. Some things might sound a little weird and all, but I really enjoyed all the dishes, which cost all of us about $5 each. At that point, Mario had to head back to the ship, so we continued on with out him and wandered our way in circles through the area.
It was still fun without our Chinese-speaking friend, and Andres managed to buy 4 Rolexes (obviously fake) for $10, and a 4 gig card for his camera for $12 or so. He was proud of himself…but he’s kind of a quirky dude. We all stopped at one point for Haagen-Dazs ice cream, which was really good, but almost as expensive as the entire lunch. And then after a couple hours of wandering and eventually figuring out we walked in a cirle, we caught a cab back to the terminal and got on the 4:00 shuttle back to the ship.
Shanghai is a really cool city though. There’s a lot more I’d love to see and hope I have a few more opportunities to get off the ship for extended periods of time. And that’s about it for the day, thanks!