Log 14

Ni Hao,

Again, I must apologize, because this too is going to be a lengthy log, for it will cover my entire time in China. I was going to upload a different log every day, however, China monitors the internet. I felt that since I am talking about China on my website, that it would be smarter to wait until Vietnam to upload the post. I did not want the Chinese government shutting down my website, because I wrote something they didn’t like.

We will start on my first day in China. After docking, and going through customs, I stopped at the bank to pull money out of the ATM. This was an adventure all in itself. Normally when you insert your card, it will give you a language option. But this time, it gave me two options in Chinese. Not knowing what either of them said, I did what anyone would have done, and I randomly selected the top one. I mean what could possibly go wrong by hitting the wrong button, right? Anyway, I guess I chose the right button because after hitting the top button, it gave me the option for English. I never found out what happened when you hit the bottom button. I thought I was lucky the ATM didn’t eat my card the first time I guessed, and I didn’t feel like pushing my luck.

Next, I made my way to the post office. At this moment, I am walking around by myself. I wasn’t worried though, as china is the second safest place to be, behind Japan. So, I wandered until I found a guard at the cruise terminal and asked him where to go for the post office. He pointed me in the direction up one road and then to make a right. So I started up that road and made it to another intersection. Now, based on the hand motions the guard had made, I was to turn right here. But just to make sure I ask a random gentleman on the sidewalk. He too motioned me to the right and started waving his hand from front to back. Now, this was the hand motion we use back home when we give directions to someone and are saying “all the way down the street” or “way far that way”. So I start walking that way anticipating an endless walk. Then the gentleman and I part ways. As I make my way down the block, I get about half way when I heard a whistle. I turn around and it is that guy I had just got directions from. He waved for me to follow him, and so I turned around. As I go to where he was, I saw that there was a banner that said “China post and postal savings”. I thanked the man and entered the office. I managed to get the workers to understand that I had to send a package to America. Everyone knows the word “America”. They may not know any English, but they know “America”. So this woman gives me a piece of paper with Chinese on it, and walks away. So lost out of my mind, I just stand there. I think I must have stood there for about five minutes until they noticed I was still there. Then that woman comes back with someone else, and this new person speaks a little English. She tells me that they don’t mail things there and that I need to go to the address on this little slip of paper. Well, since I can’t read the address I am pretty much forced to take a taxi. I turn to go out to the street, and I find two more SASers behind me. And they are two of which I hang out with on the ship. So, I was able to safe them the trouble by taking them with me to the right place, and that meant that we were able to split the fare. Finally, we got to the “real” post office. The only difference between the two was that the first one had “postal savings” on the banner and this one didn’t.

So we mailed out things and decided to walk back to the ship. On our way back, we stopped at two food places. Pretty much the only two that were open. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that practically everything was closed, because it was the middle of the Chinese new year. Everyone closes their doors to go home for the holiday and enjoy the festival. Anyway, at the first one, I got a wonton soup. It tasted good, not that I knew what I was eating. Next we went to a vegetarian shop. Here I got noodles. There was a bit of a snag with this one though. There were three noodle options, all written in Chinese. So, again I did what any insane traveler would do and I picked one at random. Traveling to these places is not for picky eats. English is almost nonexistent. So I ate these noodles, again not really sure what I was eating, but it tasted good.

After we made it back to the ship, I went to my room to pack a bag. When my other friend got back from here day program, we were going to leave for an overnight independent travel. We wanted to do it now since the rest of the places we are going are not the best places for independent overnight travel. We ended up going to a city right outside of Shanghai called Hangzhou. Getting there was pretty smooth, of course accompanied by the usually struggles of taking public transportation in a foreign country. Finding a hotel after arriving wasn’t too difficult either. We looked up the characters for hotel and just walked up the street until we came across one. The hotel must have been at least 18 floors tall, luckily we ended up on the third floor. The hotel was sort of weird compared to the ones in the States. To open the door, it is the same, you stick in the card and wait for the green light. But after I opened the door, it started making weird mechanical noises that freaked me out. A little. I may have jumped at the noise. Another difference is that, in order to get the power to activate, you have to put your room key in the holder by the door. The room was a good size and included a side room with a table. There were universal outlets. The carpet was a tad stained and the walls as well, probably because they smoke a lot here. The room was freezing when we walked in. My friend noticed all the windows were opened, and so we closed them. It took a few hours for the room to heat up. The TV had some English movies programmed on it, but we didn’t watch any because we didn’t know if that would be an extra charge or not. It was okay though, because we were heading out in the morning to explore the city.

Morning came and we checked out of the hotel to go exploring. Now to remind you, a key thing we didn’t think of when we left for this city was that it was the middle of the Chinese new year. Because of this, nothing was open for us to get breakfast. So we went to the one place in China that was open. Starbucks. When in doubt, if even in a tough spot in China, just find a Starbucks. So, we got some breakfast from Starbucks and wandered the city. Obviously, since everything was closed there wasn’t anything to do. So we ended up going back to shanghai early. We exchanged our tickets for an either train, but still had to wait an hour to board the train. Well, I had to use the bathroom before that time would could. And trust me, I tried to hold it. So I sucked it up and used the squatty potty. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, however it was a good thing I had brought toilet paper with me, because they did not supply it. The reason this is an issue for many Americans is because when we squat, we put our weight forward on our toes. But if you were to do that here, you would soil your clothes. So the trick is to lean back, without falling over. Well the train terminal had a little handle at the bottom of the stall that you could hold on to, to prevent falling over. This made the experience slightly better. Another thing about the bathrooms is that the water is always freezing and they don’t supply soap. In the States, it would be considered a major health code violation.

Upon returning to Shanghai, we returned to the ship and stayed in for the rest of the night, as we were both exhausted. The next day, that same friend and I returned to shanghai and just started walking. It was still during the festival, so things were still closed. As we made our way to the left of the ship, we found people. We followed them to the memorial looking thing. Took some pictures from a good view, and continued down to street. As we kept walking we noticed another group of people walking to another location. So we followed them. Not creepily though. Along the way, we saw an Icee shop. I wanted one really badly, but it isn’t safe to eat/drink the ice in China so I wasn’t able to get one. We ended up in the Bund, where the festival was. Because of the crowd, we didn’t go to the center of the festival, but we stayed to the outside going in and out of shops. A lot of the shops had the same general things for different prices. Some shops had unique things, but a majority was the same. As these were the only shops that were open the entire time we had been in China so far, I decided to get my souvenir shopping done here.

It started getting late so we started to head back. The rest of the night was dinner and movies with my cabinmate.

The next day. Day 4. I stayed in with my cabinmate. The air in China is so heavy from pollution that it is hard to breathe in for long periods of time. Also, since it was so cold, it made you really tired very quickly. We went to lunch and dinner, and just watched a bunch of movies.

On day five I went out very briefly to go to the black market. Now, this isn’t a black market in the sense that it is secret. Everyone knows where to find it. It is mostly for foreigners, but I did see some Chinese people there. Everything is fake. Or stolen, but you know when it is stolen because those people are really sketchy. That is why, no one goes to the black market by themselves. I went with two of my guy friends. Here, I go some things for my cabinmate because she wasn’t allowed off the ship because they wouldn’t give her a visa. I can answer any questions about that later when I get home. Anyway, I also bought cards against humanity. Last I checked, it was about 30 or 40$ in the States. I got it for 15$ here.

The sixth day, the last day, I didn’t go out at all. A bunch of programs were coming back and I didn’t want to get stuck in the long line coming back. Also, to be honest, China really wasn’t that exciting. I talking to someone who took their kids to the science and technology museum and they said that it wasn’t worth it. Even the oldest kid, I would estimate him to be about 6, said that the only interesting thing in the entire museum was the robots that solved Rubix cubes. Someone else went to the aquarium and said it was like any other aquarium you could go to. Also, when walking down the street, almost everywhere you went it smelled like trash, and men spit everywhere as well. All in all, China isn’t a place that I would be super excited to return to. I would like to go to the great wall because it is one of the seven wonders of the world. But, other than that, I wouldn’t want to come back.

Lastly, I always have to catch myself when I talk to someone. I have found many times when I start to say “what could possibly go wrong” or “how bad could it be”. But being a movie lover, I know that everything goes wrong and gets worse when someone says that. So being a little superstitious I am being very careful not to say that.

I am in Vietnam now. I will be posting the second set of Japan pictures and all of my China pictures.