Transit Days at Sea

So I'm realizing I haven't talked much at all about life on the ship and at sea which is such a big part of this experience. For now I'll just talk about the transit days and then do a bigger post about typical sea life. So as I mentioned in the Hong Kong post, there were about 130 people on the ship for our transit from HK to Shanghai. There were no programs, no meetings, no scheduled anythings! The South China Sea was a bit choppy so some folks were having motion sickness….but it was like a weekend at sea. I would get up early and just walk around outside on the front deck and take in the beautiful sunrise! Then I would run to breakfast (from 7-8:30am only)…I would usually get there at about 8:29. Then just chill.

In addition to students, staff, and faculty, we have a about a 100 life long learners who are mostly older folks who want to travel the world but with a more socially conscious perspective. They are some of the coolest folks on the ship! Many of them are retired or have just needed a break so have come on this journey! There are fifteen folks from the Bender Family and they all play this card game called Hand & Foot. I have learned this game and love it, so during this transit, we played this game for four hours each day! It was awesome! Then in the evening time we would not have our typical buffet dinner. The dining hall crew needed to practice for the Alumni Ball coming up in a few weeks so we would get all dressed up and go have a fully served 4-course meal. The first night I had corn chowder soup, salad greens with citrus vinaigrette, seared tofu with veggies and a berry medley cheese cake. J The tofu was delicious! The second night I had cream of broccoli soup, salad with Italian dressing, Penne Primavera and three layer raspberry chocolate cake. Yea, it's a hard day at work. J

Shanghai

We came into Shanghai on a beautiful blue day! Though not as clustered with highrises as Hong Kong, there were some beautiful buildings like the bottle opener, the pineapple and the Radio Tower. For the first day, I just jumped on the SAS city orientation tour since Dave Bender said it was really good. And it sure was!We started by driving through the Bund then to Old Town. We walked along the Zig Zag bridge (the Chinese believe that evil spirits travel in straight lines so everything is curved or in non-straight lines) full with tourists and made our way to the Yuyuan Gardens that are over 400 years old! It was pretty cool to just walk around and see the incredible architecture and detail in everything. Check out more about them: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shanghai/yuyuan_garden.htm. Then we had some free time to walk around the really well developed shopping area in Old Town (everything looks like old pagodas but are in great condition with a variety of shops from Starbucks to local eateries to souvenir shops. This is pretty much the only place to buy any traditional souvenirs in the whole city! Then we went off to lunch at a restaurant by the Radio Tower. This tower looks like a rocket ship or something from the future. There are three main balls that make it's structure and you can go up to an observation deck and glass floor. There is even a hotel here that is only for government guests to the city. We had lunch at this place that looked like a banquet hall. There were probably about 50 tables, each seating about 8-12 people. There were about 50 of us on the trip and 7 vegetarians so we all got seated together. I got to have pickled lotus root (kinda tastes like bamboo shoots), fried rice, some veggies and oranges for dessert. Then we headed off to the Shanghai Museum which housed a lot of textile, jade and bronze artifacts from different regions of China. One of the highlights of Shanghai is the Jade Buddha Temple known for its two Jade Buddhas made from the same piece of stone. It was pretty cool to see the whole temple and these special images as well. The temple runs its own tea shop specializing in herbal remedies fro everything from allergies to high cholesterol to ease pain caused by cancer therapy. It was cool to just sit and enjoy a little bit of tea and learn how to brew proper tea. Then we were off to dinner in another section of town but similar family style tables with a huge lazy susan turntable in the middle. I did come to love this invention during my time in China! The best part of this trip was the acrobatics show put on by Shanghai Acrobatics, one of the premier troupes in all of China. Just to see the incredible skills and feats was pretty cool. See the pictures and you'll see what I'm talking about. Once we were back at the ship, I wanted to go to the Bund to take pictures but as soon as we started walking the fancy lights all around the city turned off. :/ We still went for a little walk just to get a lay of the land.]

The next day, Callie and I grabbed some lunch just across from the port at this small hole in the wall place. They didn't speak any English so I was glad I got one of my Chinese friends to write vegetarian in Chinese characters so that I could communicate. I had this soft tofu with soy sauce and fresh peppercorns and rice.Alissa & Julia and us walked down to the Bund and took some pictures of the colonial architecture and walked down Nanjing Rd (like the 5th Ave of Shanghai). Then we went to the Urban Planning & Development Museum; the coolest thing here was a whole room dedicated to a model of what the city will look like in a few years. It was cool to get a bird's eye view of the city and what it will look like real soon. They are in the process of building a tower even taller than the bottle opener building and an new building will be where our ship was docked as well. Underneath this museum, is this street that is supposed to look like Shanghai in the 1930s'. It was cute and was a whole stretch of little shops and vendors. We ended up at a tea house and enjoyed some local tea and also had a really fun photo session. J From here, we got the metro to go check out the "antique" market of town. We had been told not to believe how old any of the stuff we would see would be. But it was still cool to just walk around and see the different things people were selling from stone Buddha statues to Michael Jackson playing cards to old posters of the Maoist Revolution.

Then we went off walking to find dinner after a long day of walking and shopping. J We ended up at this nice Thai restaurant and it was exactly what I needed! I had some spicy veggie fried rice and it totally hit the spot. I've been having a hard time with food on the ship so I've come to really appreciate the food at port….and I can't wait to just cook a decent meal when I get back. I've come to appreciate the ability to choose what I want to eat everyday as well!

Since I wasn't able to take pictures of the Bund at night the first night, I went there first before heading back to the ship to be on duty. The last day, I just took the metro to Old Town to do some souvenir shopping and ended up having lunch with Dean Dan, Al, Marsha (an LLL) right by the Yuyuan gardens which was nice. I had this bok choy and tofu dish with rice. After spending the last of my Yuans, I came back to the ship. J It was beautiful to sail out of the Huangpu River at night with all the lights of buildings saying good bye. And we were off to Taiwan!!!!!