Oh, China

Ship Time: 2335 (11:35pm)

We are now 13 hours ahead of the central time zone, by the way.  So right now you all are thinking “TGIF! Lunch break soon!”  Or for some of you in Duluth, you’re still sleeping.  Others of you are in Thief River Falls, a popular get-away spot for the city folk who need a little cool down before spring really hits hard.  Some of you are at preschool or are going to pick your kid up from school in a little while.  And just a few of you may be sitting in a University lecture hall, probably Bohannon 90 listening to the piano students next door and counting down the hours until your weekend starts.

I am just about to go to bed, after two days in Shanghai.  I am also mentally preparing myself that it is not only Saturday tomorrow, but I have class tomorrow for the first time in a week.  I also need to plan for a trip to Japan I happen to be taking, plus start at least two different end-of-term papers.  I’m also going to need to locate that pair of long underwear I packed because we are days away from the equator and it feels like MN.   I just got done watching a pirated version of “New In Town”, the second worst representation of Minnesota out of Hollywood I’ve witnessed (the first being that movie with Kirsten Dunst and Kirsty Alley) also quite entertaining at parts.  “Juno” is a better bet for a little taste of home. 

So…Shanghai.  Mainland China.  Home of three of the five tallest buildings in the world, all seen across the river from the deck of our ship.  Major construction in preparation for the World Expo 2010 going on which made for an interesting time trying to stay on the sidewalks that were either torn up or never existed in the first place.  There were many times when we were just walking in one of the lanes of a semi-busy road.  I’ve come close to death other times on this trip…having a bus pass your right shoulder so close you lean your head over and hit it was no big deal.  A little startling, but nothing to be alarmed over :)

Two Days. Fortunately, I signed up to do what’s called a “City Orientation” with SAS (Semester At Sea) for the whole first day.  That means they set up a whole toured day for you…bus to take you around, stops around the city, a couple meals, and even a show.  10:30am to 10:00pm.  A long day but we got to see most of the famous tourist areas.  First we went to the Yuyuan Gardens which turned out to be my favorite part of the day.  Surrounding that is the Yu Bizarre (AKA: market) where all kinds of people were shopping, getting the weirdest looking food, and walking around the “9 Zig-Zags”.  Everything has symbolic meaning here…longevity of life, good luck, wealth, health, you name it—there’s a not-so-hidden meaning to it.  And yes, there are a ton of red decorations and yellow too.  I think it’s quite gorgeous, even though a bit superstitious (is that the word I’m looking for?).  Then we made our way to lunch.  It was Lazy-Susan style (that giant round thing in the middle of the table and rotates so no one has to pass the plates of food around) and there was only one dish with peanuts out of the 7 or 8 that they brought out.  Mom, I keep forgetting to tell you how many people on the ship and off have asked me if I’m vegetarian just by looking at my plate.  The meat and fish in this hemisphere is even worse to look at…it’s not raw, it’s still alive. Yuk.  I’m getting my protein through eggs now, which is a hit or miss.  Anyways, after lunch we visited a beautiful temple with the Jade Buddha. They love their jade and their Buddha, so why not have a giant Buddha carved out of a single slab of jade?  We also spent quite a bit of time in the Shanghai Museum which was mostly arts stuff (ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, etc) but also some furniture and clothing.  By then it was already time for another Lazy-Susan dinner with even better food and then a Chinese Acrobatic Show.  Now, I’ve seen acrobatics shows before, even “Chinese Acrobats”, but this was by far the best I’ve seen.  They exceeded my expectations during every act.  The whole thing was much more fun than academic, although I did learn a lot of things about this city.  One is that I’m not flexible because these acrobats are taking more than their fair share.  My parents are off the hook on that one.

Today was an interesting day.  Sometimes on this ship you have days where you’re just in a funk.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this “funk” to you all yet, but I think it comes from all the stimuli coming in at once from being in 7 ports in one month, school work when you only have class 6 days out of that month, and the emotional, mental and physically draining experiences of everyday life out here.  Today was just one of those days for me.  Little things weren’t going quite right all day and that led up to a small pool of disappointment by this evening.  However, on a positive note, I’m doing my best to appreciate the time I had in China while taking note of some things I’d like to do if I ever came back.  Also, my time spent today made me appreciate Hong Kong even more.  You come to learn that you will like some places more than others and you can’t feel bad if you don’t love every port.  I would talk to you about details, but there isn’t a while lot to say.  I went back to that Bizarre to eat a bunch of the good looking food I had seen, one of which included something with peanuts.  I spit it out right away, don’t worry.  That was hilarious because the peanut part was covered by this floury mess so when I spit it in the trash, flour went everywhere….a puff of cloud around my face.  All is good…I followed it up with some fried tofu and my swollen lip went down right away!  For how many peanuts have been around between Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, I’ve only had a few encounters total.  That’s not too bad, right?  We also walked through this brand new underground mall that didn’t really have many stores in it yet, it was just interesting to see what they built under existent structures.  I splurged and got a massage today (“splurged” meaning for more money that Thailand but still much less than the ship or the States).  Talked to the ‘rents today and interrupted Mom’s viewing of “E.R.”  Sorry about that.  No more racking up the phone bill, I promise.  I had a trip with SAS for one of my classes for the last couple hours we were here.  Got back on the ship, had a great dinner, and have since been journaling and watching that movie. 

I don’t think Shanghai is what I expected to see of China.  It is quite industrial and there were some areas that were hard to get to with the time constraints I had both days.  I would have liked to ride the bullet train (200+ mph or something like that) and definitely gone up the 2nd tallest building in the world had it been a clear day today.  However, I can’t complain….I mean I was just in CHINA!  As you’ve heard a lot lately, two more days at sea and then we get to Kobe, Japan.  I’m getting really excited about Japan…not sure of my exact plans yet but I’m going to try to get some insider tips from the interport students here from Kobe University and Kobe College. 

Miss you all very much these days :) Don’t forget to remember me