howzit my china (Shanghai, China)

Wuan,
ni hao

Yet, another crazy adventure I have just returned from.
I was supposed to go to Birmingham, then Beijing, but instead they sent me to Shanghai. The crew onboard was fantastic, and the best teamplayers I have met so far. Most of us went for dinner together at a local restaurant (including the captain and first officer) and feasted on unidentifiable food items and local Chinese beer and it all came down to R40 each (we were about 9 people) China is dirtcheap (no pun). The next day we took a shuttle to town and went to Yai Tai market, close to the big Science Technology Museum, where I almost shopped till I dropped (almost, because they don't accept credit cards in Shanghai). Had some local food in a cafeteria where people stared at me, because I was the only whitie there. Then I missioned all on my own again. Alta drives me a little looney sometimes:) To the Yu Yuan gardens, which is quite far out and with the majority not speaking English, it was quite a toughie. But I made it there (with mostly the help of Chinese speaking foreigners - I was speechless to see a Lebanese man give directions to my taxi driver in Chinese) The gardens are 400 years old (I have no photos, my camera shut down) and the surrounding markets were really gorgeous, although packed with tourists.

Now, returning was a total new escapade on it's own. With a time limit to get back to where the hotel's shuttle will pick me up, I didn't have time to waste. And I was out of town, so the taxi and English speaking situation raised my stress bar and caused me a bit of nervousness. I got dropped in an area, instead of at the subway, so on the way learned to ask directions to the subway in Chinese (haha). I took my sandals off, and was running by this stage. Foreigners again helped me to buy a ticket (as the machine and everything else is in Chinese - and as you might have noticed, does not look like English at all). Got inside the train, and counted off the amount of time we stopped, to know when to get off. And from disembarkation, continued to run with 2 minutes left, and successfully got on the bus back to the hotel. Happy ending:) It was like something out of a movie. Overall, had a good time as usual.

Later in the month, I will be going to Hong Kong.. But that's for another time.

Hope you are all well;-)


Zai hui
Alta