2nd day of Shanghai, China

So... I am wrote about today's experience. It was alot fresher and rolled off my tongue. I will write about yesterday's (our 1st night in Shanghai) experience tomorrow lol. I also finished and posted a lot of stuff tonight in terms of blog wise so I am exhausted. It is 3:16 am. Catch ya on the flip side. Happy reading:

It is is 20:27 or 8:27 pm. I believe today is the 31st of March. Never really know lol. It is the 2nd of our three days in Shanghai, China. I gotta tell you. I absolutely LOVE SHANGHAI! I've had such a blast. The weather is up my alley. It is cold. Lol. It was sooooo exciting and great to have to bundle up and wear a coat, scarves, gloves and hats. We've been experiencing the sub-tropical humidity and heat that it was so necessary to have a brief intermission. So what have I done? Today I had my SAS trip called “Tasting the Everyday Life of a Shanghai Citizen.” There were 26 students signed up for it but only 7 and our trip leader Juliana Acheson showed up. It was perfect just the way it was though. Our English-Chinese trip guide Joe was awesome and the woman we met at the Community Center who accompanied us for the bulk of the remaining day was equally as amazing. We went there to check out the facility and talk about the services. When we first walked into room we were given tea and sat on couches. Joe translated for her, but it was just cute to watch their interaction. They were soo funny and just warm. It was so nice to be around them and it was a great diversion from the standoff mentality that we had experienced in some other countries. Seriously, they were so open and personable. So the community center we were in was for the immediate community of 95,000 residents. Pretty large. 60% were manual workers. The other 40% were an assortment of doctors, government employees, teachers etc. 10% of the population were children. Joe explained the One Child policy and the exceptions. For example, parents who were also single children were allowed to have two children; those infertile could have another try, those of the minority population in rural areas of China (Tibetans, Taiwanese etc) could have a 2nd child. Because it was the child's duty to take care of the parents and grandparents it would only be possible if they had a 2nd child given those specific circumstances. But majority of Chinese were bound under the one child policy and believed that they had to produce one quality child which explained the competitive spirit for perfectionism. Another interesting tidbit was that the Chinese retirement age versus the American retirement age. Women who worked in the manual labor force retired at 54 years old; those in the mental work force retired at 55 years old. Men retired at 65 years old. The life expectancy for Chinese men was 79 and for women was 82. Consequently most of the people who used the community center were senior citizens since most of the residents worked or were in school. She showed us the computer room where there were courses to teach the older folks how to use the internet etc., the reading room where people came and read magazines, newspapers etc. Then we went upstairs to the rec area. There was a disco room where we walked in and watched some of the Chinese elders dance. It was soo cool and entertaining. I recorded some of it for my Music & Cognition class. Then we left the community center and headed to the hospital. While there, we got to see a guy get a medical shoulder massage. It felt weird crowding around him even though they assured us it was okay. Then there was this method that was even more intriguing. The doctor took a lighter and put it on the tops of cups. He placed them down onto the guy's back. It was creating some of suction. Another guy was in the room who had just had it so the doctor took his cup off. It was a circle from the heat and imprint of the cup. I forget the purpose of it... but that was basically it. We went up a floor and looked onto two lying in bed undergoing acupuncture. It looked so painful but one lady was knocked out, the other was smiling at us and waving us in. Lol. There was a cart of needles and used cotton balls just outside their curtain and I looked at them and couldn't imagine that to be painless.

-Quick deviation: the view from my cabin is unbelievable. I feel like my pictures of the Shanghai Skyline doesn't do it justice. There are amazingly lit sky high architected buildings with weird cool shapes and everything is bright bright bright with spinning multicolored lights. It makes me feel so happy. Lol. Similar to the skyline in Hong Kong which I also loved. I tried to take a picture to best capture all of it from across the water on the ship and although it comes out, it just doesn't look the same. I guess what I am trying to say is some of the most spectacular things I've seen or explored just can't and won't be conveyed in mere pictures. Sincerely. One of the reasons I believe I loved Hong Kong as I love Shanghai is the familiarity factor. It reminds me sooooo much of the modern cities in the U.S. It could easily be Manhattan or as I hear (and will get to see when we land in San Diego) California. Today I was sooo excited just to see the highway and the traffic that we got stuck in and just the little things that we take for granted in the U.S. After being in India and Viet Nam where comprehension of roads and traffic (and even different vehicles on the road) is completely different makes traffic back in the states much more durable. I will not be complaining anytime soon.... I in fact, miss my car and the rush hours and the stop signs and crosswalks. All so minor, yet imperative lol. We've all come to a conclusion that the motorcycle, bikes and scooter drivers in Viet Nam drove better than those in India. Lol. Seriously. But I was definitely terrified crossing in Viet Nam. Like petrified. The idea is you gotta just walk. You can't slow down and you absolutely certainly never should stop if you start walking. The traffic continues around you. If you do any of the previously mentioned, you increase your chances of dying because they don't know what you're about to do. The challenge is their speed because you see a massive clump of helmeted motorcyclists coming at you top speed. Natural instinct tells you you're going to die and realistically you very well can. There are a ton of accidents in Viet Nam. But generally, they drive around you so that was one thing SAS kept stressing to us. Take a leap of faith, just walk out and don't stop or look back. Lol. Again, no worries of that here. There are crosswalks, people who follow the traffic signs lol, and speed limits. Okay back to my day.

We went to marketplace. It was one of the coolest and best marketplaces I've been to in any port. I love food. This most people know by now.... but I absolutely love American-Chinese food and while much of it is different, there are some similarities. All of the food looked delicious. We saw some of the oddest stuff though. Like pig brain, pig kidney, pig stomach, pig lung, pig intestines, pig genital, pig heart, pig ear, pig feet... just about every part of every animal. The Chinese didn't believe in wasting any parts which I guess makes sense if you are going to kill an animal... We saw whole fried/roasted ducks simply hanging up by their necks. It was very weird to see the full body to be honest. Then there were a ton of cow, chicken, and other duck parts like tongue, back, tails, feet, breast etc. We saw frog (live ones to be cooked) and cooked frog, various tofus (fried, boiled, wheat, soy etc), tons of different types of fish stingray, flatfish, blowfish, cod, catfish...live eels which we watched get split and their vertebrates taken out (nuts),  snails, mussels, clams, various types of shrimps, live turtles to be cooked that looked different than any turtles we'd seen they had longer necks and looked like they live in the sand or something...all types of green vegetables, exotic and regular fruit like strawberries, kiwis, apples, oh they had like 4 different types of mango which was interesting,  different grains and types of sticky rice which I had no idea was a huge deal...I only knew of brown, yellow or white rice in the states... (but that's just my own ignorance),  types of peanuts, walnuts, dates... In between booths of all this food, there were appliance shops, clothing/tailor shops, bedding shops and shoes shops. The smell was incredible and a few people brought some stuff for us to try. All was as scrumptious as it looked and smelled... don't know what one of them was but Joe brought it for us. Juliana brought what was like a fried omelet with chives or something. Lol. Don't know exactly what I ate but it was all great. Joe and the woman from the community center were great guides because they were so patient and talkative. They were explaining different stuff to us and asking the merchants questions if they didn't know... A lot of the folks looked at us curiously as we milled around but they were friendly and smiled a lot and kept saying hello hahaha. Anyways we left and headed for the family we would visit for a glimpse of a Chinese home and have lunch. The place was exceptional. It was one of the nicest apartments I had seen for the price or in general. They told us they paid what would be about 600-700 USD a month. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, one kitchen, balcony (where they had their clothes drying on hangers), one living room with a big flat screen (as they did in one of the bedrooms). They had a cute little dog named Chi Chi which depending on how you say it means “boobs” in Japanese... It was just awesome. Totally hope I could find something nearly as nice in New Orleans when I move this summer. They were flattered when we kept telling them how nice it was and Joe asked us how much apartments cost in the U.S. That brought up the whole discussion about how big the U.S and how it depended on the location... if in Manhattan near Central Park about a million while in Maine, maybe not so much lol. We had another revolving circle in the middle of the table. Its a cool way to eat family style. I wouldn't be opposed to having one of those for my eventual family... or even just when having guests over. They'd prepared food for about 26 people so we had a lot of eating to do... lol. It was a sufficient amount per plate but multiple dishes split among 9 people (including Joe and the c.center woman whose name I sadly cannot remember). There was fried pork, chicken with slices of potatoes, roast duck, whole shrimp in a spicy sauce, cucumbers, a celery and chicken dish, dumplings, some kind of noodle vegetable thing, a white looking ball in some type of watery mixture which if you bit into was very doughy yet sweet and had sesame seed inside, some more leafy steamed vegetables like their Chinese lettuce I believe, white rice with egg and some other stuff that I cannot remember. They kept bringing out more dishes or encouraging us to finish the food on the plates... it was insane lol. Oh and forget about the beverage. Man, every time I put my glass down, she was already initiating to pour more. Lol. We got fed. It is what, now 21:33 and I am STILL full. That lunch was around 1-2 pm. I am totally set until maybe lunchtime tomorrow. Lol. We talked a bit and they asked us about the program. We went around a circle and told them the places we'd been and where we're going. It's funny because Joe would translate it and they would react so excitedly or they could recognize certain parts of the name and start nodding and saying it in Chinese Lol...they were pumped when we said Singapore and Hong Kong haha.

So after that, we took pictures and then we peaced out. The woman from the c. center left us at this point and we were sad to see her go but the trip continued. We went to one of the huge strips for shopping. Ninyang or Jijiang road? I can't really remember to be honest. But that's about as close as I am going to get to it lol. We agreed to split and meet back in front of the Haagen Dazs in an hour. The weather had changed dramatically. It was sunny, breezy and hot. It was a nice pedestrian walkway. Some folks went and got bubble tea- I had no Chinese yen with me and wasn't sure if they took USD which was good for me because I was still stuffed. I could totally attest to buying food in the moment rarely because I am actually hungry. I will more than likely go get one tomorrow though =) So much I want to try!! We walked past the KFC and Pizza Hut. Joe said that the Chinese loved KFC. Hahaha. He gave us a number about how many were in Shanghai but I forget what that was. Anyways, walked around went in and checked out some stuff. Random tidbit: Walked into a store called Zara which was like a cross between Express and H&M. I looked at the tags of stuff and most things I looked at were either made in Portugal or Spain. Haha. Just thought that was interesting. How cool is that? For my things I brought during ports, I've had a kick at looking at my tags and seeing “made in Mauritius,” “made in India,” “made in Singapore” etc. I've physically been there, and I physically purchased those items I am wearing... ahhh so cool. Okay enough...

But then we all met. Joe showed off his shoes he brought hahaha. We waited for Juliana and we loaded back on the bus, made it back to the ship. I came back and slept. I woke up around 7ish pm to a knock at my door. My new cabin steward Angelito was accompanied with one of the stewards from Pursers desk. They were worried about me --it was quite embarrassing. I guess he had knocked on the door earlier so that he could come in as he usually does, and clean. He probably peeked in and saw me sleep and decided to come back later. Well later became 7 pm and I was still unresponsive hahaha. I assured them I was okay and that he didn't have to come in and clean and make our beds. Totally fine at this point... lol. Went to the Garden lounge. Folks are back from their trips and it was cool to see some people on this ship again lol. I sat talking with one of the cooks from the island whose name I forget... he's comes out with his own station for pasta during the 2nd day of ports. He was telling me how he'd gotten sick in HK and was finally feeling better. He told me it was his 2nd time to Shanghai, this time around, he and a bunch of the stewards ordered a plate of snake!!! lol. I thought that was soo cool. They sold Snake wine (with the actual snake and a scorpion inside) in Viet Nam. SAS told us we were not allowed to bring it on board even if it was for a gift for someone... I thought about buying it and giving it to some folks hahaha. I also thought about the other stuff I was open to trying while in Viet Nam... okay, don't judge me... we would eat it on a regular basis if we hadn't designated chicken and stuff as our standard meat lol... so here goes: Snake, cat, rat, dog which was apparently more expensive (so we were instructed not to fear eating it without our consent), they told us the name was Cho so if we wanted to/didn't want it we would know what it was on a menu. I plan on getting a dog when I move to Louisiana, how twisted is that. I wouldn't love him any less lol.  Seriously though. Everything I've eaten has been delicious in Asia. I have enjoyed the exotic foods and preparation techniques in every port. Okay, enough about food. Sat with Kayla, briefed her about my trip today. Then  Anna came over. We discussed plans about staying in San Diego to check out Disney Land, Sea world or the San Diego Zoo. The biggest conflict is the prices... it will all be in US dollars urgh. Lol. Gotta think about hotel, food and travel accommodations and park/zoo entrance fees. Then we discussed our earlier discussions about going to Las Vegas sometime this summer (New Year's would be too far down the line)... but then they mentioned DC and I had such a blast last semester and Kelli lives in Baltimore and would be perfect... But then we got to talking about New Orleans since I'll be down there and they got super excited and started talking about Mardi Gras and how we should meet then and how wild it gets- Anna said she went one year a month after it was held and they were still cleaning up the city from Mardi Gras lol.  Then Anna mentioned the Olympics of 2012 and how we should go to London which is hyper expensive lol... Guess you can say we will be globe trotting when we get back if we can afford it. Random: talked about phone plans, Ipads, Iphones, Sony Erickson etc. Both Anna and my phone will be coming back on April 12th. I am excited =) But will have to be cautious because I will still be in international waters and don't want a crazy bill. Just nice to know it'll be working again.