This Is So Not Sustainable!

Day 1 in China, day 30 of my voyage

Ni Hao! (It means hello) I woke up this morning with Tokyo Tower directly outside my ship window. It looks like a building from Tomorrowland in Disneyland, and the skyline was literally huge buildings and skyscrapers as far as my little eyes could see, on either side on the water. San Francisco has NOTHING on Shanghai as far as big buildings go. Team Awesome went to breakfast on the 6^th floor, then we had to go to the diplomatic briefing. They had someone from the consulate come and speak to us about China, and they basically told us not to argue, don’t talk politics, and don’t mention Obama. Overall, it was pretty pointless, and I definitely could have spent my morning catching up on sleep instead. That meeting ended around 9:15, then we had to wait for immigration. They told us it was going to take a while, but we weren’t sure exactly how long it was going to take. We waited what seemed like forever, then they started calling the different seas up to pick up their passports and get our temperatures checked (yes, China is that extreme that they take your temperature when you enter the country). Graham and Shauna had an FDP for the first half of the day, so Alli, Brittany, and I headed off to explore some of Shanghai. We bundled up in some of our warmest clothes, then left the ship. Let me tell you, it was cold. I wore underarmor, leggings, and my jeans, two pairs of socks, my vans, and about 5 shirts and still felt the chill. All of my friends that go to school in cold places are laughing at me right now (Peter), but I am used to San Diego weather! Anyways, we ventured into the downtown area, which is full of big buildings, shops, and tons of places to eat. It reminded me of San Francisco in the sense that there were people constantly trying to sell you stuff. There was this one guy who was beckoning us into one big store. We went inside and started looking at all the stuff on the first floor, but he kept motioning for us to go downstairs. After Alli and Britt bought beanies to keep their heads warm, we followed him downstairs. Downstairs was basically like a giant indoor flea market, with stalls everywhere. There are fake bags, underwear, belts, clothing, everything you can imagine. And let me tell you, it all looks absolutely real. The guy finally took us to one stall where there were a ton of purses and wallets, and when we looked around and were kind of iffy on it, he led us through a fake wall, into a back dark room and rolled up a storage door, and turned on the light. These were the better quality things. They had every named brand you can imagine, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Fendi, Coach, Gucci, and on and on. They also had sunglasses as well. I didn’t want to buy anything, as I am waiting until I get to Beijing, but Britt bought a purse and some sunglasses. The little salesgirl was a firecracker, and overall, I think Britt could have worked her down to a much cheaper price, but it wasn’t too bad. After she made her purchases, we wandered around a little more. We really wanted to find a warm coffee shop or something to sit in for a little bit and defrost, and we eventually found a Dunkin Donuts and sat down. I got hot chocolate to warm me up, and we started looking through Alli’s guidebook for something to do. We found a self-walking tour through an area of old town, so we figured we would hop in a taxi and go there. Well when we got in the taxi, the driver didn’t understand what we were saying, nor could he read English, so he ended up just dropping us off at Old Street. There were an absolute ton of shops and people, so we decided to walk down it. I am so happy this guy brought us here, as there was so much to look at, and it was all decorated for Chinese New Year. We were walking around and freezing, so we went into this little tiny tea store. A lady sat us down and had us try some tea, and it was SO good. We tried a few different kinds, and Britt ended up buying some for a friend back home. After we warmed up a bit, we walked around some more. They had so much good looking food, and some not so good looking or weird looking food (octopus tentacles anyone?). We went into a candy shop and the other girls bought some stuff, and we wandered around for about 2 hours or so. Eventually, we wanted to head back to the ship and defrost for a bit before meeting the others later that night, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back. Taxis are ridiculously cheap in China, and I don’t think we paid more than 4 dollars for one since we have been here. We got back, and the 5 of us decided to eat dinner on the ship to save money. The food is always better when we are in port, because they have to cook for less people. We made a great decision; they had pasta with pesto sauce that was cooked right in front of us, and it was so yummy. After dinner, we threw some more layers on and prepared to go out!

 

 We set out with the original intent to go see a movie (yes they show some in English), but then couldn’t exactly find a movie theater or figure out how to tell a cab driver to get us one, so we decided to just head out to where we were going later. We hopped in a cab and went to the Grand Hyatt, where a lounge called Cloud 9 was located. Now, this place is one that our friend Victoria told us we should see, and we were meeting her and other members of Team Awesome at 9. We got there around 7:40, and hopped in the elevator. We took an elevator up to the 54^th floor, then got out and took another elevator to the 85^th floor, then took one more to the 87^th floor. We ran into some other SASers who were leaving, and they said it was awesome. We walked into Cloud 9, and suddenly the name made total sense. We could see EVERYTHING below us, from the Tokyo tower right across the river to our ship that was docked to The Bund area (downtown basically). It was an absolutely gorgeous view, and we fully understood why the drinks were priced at 13 bucks a piece. You pay for a view, but it is totally worth it, as it is one of the highest points to view the city from. The 5 of us sat down and were just going to hang out until 9 when the others got there, so we ordered a drink. I had one just to have one and to say that I did, and it was quite yummy. The others also ordered and split a dessert plate, and then the other girls showed up and we all sat down while they had a drink. Afterwards, Victoria wanted to show us another fine bar establishment in Shanghai. We headed to Bar Rouge, which is famous with ex-pats, but there were quite a few SASers there. The others had another drink, and we hung out there until about 12, and some of us headed back to the ship and others went to another bar. I got back, peeled off my layers, threw some pajamas on, and climbed into bed.

 

Day 2 in China, day 31 of my voyage

Woke up, had breakfast, finished my Japan blog, got ready, left ship at 10. Alli had an FDP today, so the 4 of us took off. Graham wanted to see if he could find a North Face jacket and maybe some sunglasses, so we headed back to the same store we went to the day before. We got downstairs and went back to the same original stall we had gone to the day before, and the girl that helped us the day before was there again. She was very happy that Britt and I had brought friends this time around, and when we asked to be taken to the back room again, she obliged right away. We got taken back, and the verbal sparring between the 6’3” Graham and the 5’ 1” (at the most) salesgirl named Ella began. He had seen a wallet and sunglasses he wanted, and the price started phenomenally high (as it always does). He said 25 US dollars for both, and she wouldn’t budge. Eventually he said he would give her thirty for the two of those plus a keychain, and she said yes. She then turned to Britt and I and said we could each pick a free keychain because we were so friendly and brought her business. The girl then took us to her brother’s stall, where the jackets were sold. Graham bargained hard, but they definitely did not want to give it to him for the price he was offering. We walked away, and Graham got a cover for his iPhone, and he was eventually able to strike a deal on his jacket. Full of success, we asked our friend Ella where there was a good place to eat lunch, as we were hungry from the bargaining and the fact that we spent 2 hours in that market. She wrote down the name of the place, and we walked a block over to eat there.

 

There are not many places in China that have English menus, but this place (thankfully) did. I had dumplings of some kind, as well as black pepper chicken. Mine was alright, and the others thought theirs were a bit iffy, but Graham did like the pork. Shauna liked hers until she found a chicken foot in her soup. Yes, they eat chicken feet in China. They basically eat anything and everything in China. She put the lid on her soup and wouldn’t eat any more. We looked at the drink menu, and I ordered a Sprite, while the others ordered a beer. When the beer came, I had to have one. They were simple bottles of Bud, but we got them for about 2 dollars, and the bottle was taller than my head! I just thought it was funny that beer was cheaper in China, yet the bottles are way bigger than in the US. After lunch, we were off to see the Jade Buddha!

 

 We hopped in a cab and were there in about 10 minutes. Let me tell you, cab rides are the scariest things ever in China. First of all, the back seat never has seatbelts, there is a ton of traffic, and they drive crazy! Poor Graham was freaking out in the front seat the entire time, even though he was the only one in the car that was wearing an actual seatbelt. We had to pay about 3 bucks to get in, which I thought was interesting considering it was a temple and people were worshiping, and in most places you don’t have to pay to worship. Because it is Chinese New Year, people come to worship their god and ask for good luck and prosperity in the New Year. There were an absolute ton of different altars to worship at, and there were people waving incense, bowing, and putting money on the altars. There were statues everywhere, and it was actually really beautiful to witness. I almost didn’t want to take pictures or walk around, as I felt like I was intruding on something very personal. Then I remembered that they charged people to worship and I took my camera out, figuring I would get my 3 bucks worth of pictures. A guy came up and asked if we were from the cruise ship, and we said yes, and he told us some info about the place, then took us upstairs to see the Happy Buddha. This Buddha is the one everyone envisions, the laughing, happy, fat Buddha whose belly you rub for good luck. We got to rub his belly, and the guy asked me where we were from. When I said California, he got a little excited and said “Oh! Hotel California!” and started humming some bars from the song. I thought it was rather amusing. We went back downstairs and walked around a bit more, and a girl told us that there was a free tea tasting included with the price of our ticket. She took us upstairs and sat us down at a little table, and let us try 4 different kinds of tea. She had some really good ones, but we didn’t buy any. After this little excursion, we hopped in another taxi and went back to the ship to wait for Alli to get back from her FDP and relax a little bit before going out later in the night.  

 

When the time came for us to go out, Victoria met Team Awesome at a restaurant called Din Tai Fung for dinner. It is one of the top ten restaurants in the world according to the New York Times, and the food was absolutely amazing. It is served family style, so Victoria ordered us a bunch of dishes and we all got to share them. We had dumplings filled with soup and pork (phenomenal), noodles in peanut sauce (spicy), fresh pear juice (so good), and various other yummy dishes. We got all of it for about 15 US dollars, which I didn’t think was too bad for a nice dinner at a top ten rated restaurant. After dinner, we headed to Cold Stone! Yes, we know it is American, but it was a very welcome treat for us, even though it was absolutely FREEZING outside.  The majority of us polished off our ice cream in about 5 minutes flat, then we went to a pub to relax for a little while. Victoria and Kara shared a liter of beer, which was absolutely massive and looked ridiculously filling. Others ordered Bailey’s and hot cocoa, which I tried a sip of and thoroughly enjoyed. Victoria called us two cabs and the group of us ventured to a little hole in the wall jazz club, which was packed with both Chinese and foreigners. We managed to snag two tables directly in front of the stage, and we sat and enjoyed the music and drinks for a little while before heading out again to Victoria’s parent’s house to light off some fireworks to celebrate Chinese New Year.

 

When we arrived at Victoria’s, her parents were outside their building waiting for us with boxes of fireworks. The security guards of the buildings were also right there, lighting off fireworks and enjoying themselves. They set some off right when we pulled up to the place, and the chaos and noise began. We proceeded to set off fireworks for the next hour and a half, and let me tell you, it was awesome. Not only did we get to set off little fireworks, we got to set off huge ones, like the ones you see at baseball games. They also have rolls of firecrackers that are ten or fifteen feet long and go off for 30 seconds to a minute. They are ridiculously loud, and it was so much fun. We also had sparklers, which are always fun, especially when you have fireworks setting turned on on your camera. Between 11 and 12:30 that night, there were fireworks everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean literally every street, every building, everywhere you could see. People would light them from the street in front of their houses, in the streets of downtown, or off the rooftops of buildings. Once our fireworks were done, we hopped into cabs to go back to the ship. As we were driving, we could see fireworks out every window of our cab, and sometimes we would drive right by firecrackers going off on the ground and the sparks would hit our taxi. It was crazy! Victoria had explained to us earlier that the night we were lighting off fireworks was a special night of the Chinese New Year, in which people shoot off fireworks to bring prosperity and wealth to their family in the New Year. I saw more fireworks in one night than I have seen in my entire life of 21 years. 4^th of July and New Years in the US has nothing on Chinese New Year. There is actually a reason for the celebrations and the fireworks, whereas in the US, most people forget about the meaning behind the holidays and just use them as an excuse to have a good time. If I had to do China all over again, I would definitely choose CNY as the time to go, as it is so much fun and the cities are all so alive and vibrant. This night is also where the title of the blog comes from. The theme of our voyage is sustainability, and lighting off so many fireworks is definitely not so good for the environment.

 

Day 3 in China, day 32 of my voyage

Today was the day everyone was taking off on their separate trips before reuniting in Hong Kong 4 days later. Brittany and I planned on leaving the ship around noon, so I woke up, had breakfast and packed my stuff. The two of us hopped into a cab and headed to the Shanghai Hongquiao Airport, which was about a half an hour cab ride away. We made it through security and check-in in about 25 minutes, which means we had 2.5 hours until we boarded our plane. We sat down and chatted for a while, then some other SASers arrived and we all began talking. Our flight to Beijing left right on time and we landed about 2 hours later. When all of us got off the plane, there was a little Chinese guy holding a red flag and a sign that said Semester at Sea Option 2. We knew that was us, so we headed over to him. He gave us a little welcome gift and a map. The gift was a really cool bag with some pictures inside, and the map looked like it would definitely be handy to have around. All of us hopped on a bus once we got our luggage, and we were off to the hotel. The drive was cool, mostly because Beijing is a big city, and there were buildings and lights everywhere, as well as more fireworks. It was about a half an hour drive to the King Parkview Hotel, which was situated off a street in Beijing about a 5 minute walk from the Forbidden City. Brittany and I checked in and got our room, dropped our stuff off, and a group of us decided to head out and get dinner. We ate at a restaurant right next to our hotel, which was really convenient. Brittany and I shared some fried rice and spring rolls, and they were pretty tasty. Afterwards, everyone wanted to go out and find a bar, but we had no idea where to go. We headed back to the hotel, and about 13 of us gathered into a hotel room and just hung out. Around 10:30, some of the people left to find a bar and said they would text us when they got there. Well, they texted us, but it was all jumbled, so the rest of us just hung out in the hotel for the night. Most of the people we were with are from Colorado and they go to school together. I met 4 other Alpha Chi’s, which was exciting, and one of the girls knows some of my friends from school and one of the boys has a cousin that goes to my school as well.

 

Day 4 in China, day 33 of my voyage

Today was the day our group would set out and see some tourist sights as well as our night of sleeping on the wall. We had to meet in the hotel lobby around 8:45, so Brittany and I went to breakfast at 8. Our group piled all of our luggage into the buses, then we walked over to the Forbidden City. The city was a massive area that was meant to house the emperor, as well as other important families and rulers. The city is huge, about 1.5 kilometers (I think) across, and the buildings inside are breathtaking. The families that stayed in the city were placed into their housing based on how important they were, with the emperor himself being housed in the very middle. The buildings are all incredibly detailed and it is so weird to think that it had been built so long ago without modern technology, yet the beauty of them (in my opinion) far outshines most architecture of today. We walked all the way across the city towards Tiananmen Square, and as we got to the middle, the buildings became larger and more elaborate until we finally reached the house of the emperor. It was a fairly colossal building, painted red with details of blue, green and gold along the sides of the roof. There were little men and dragon “guard” statues on the corners of the roof, ten on each corner, signaling that this was where the emperor lived. As we exited the Forbidden City, we finally got to see the front entrance to the city (we had gone through the back), which is pretty well known throughout the world. There are many flags all around, and directly in the middle over the doorway sits a portrait of Chairman Mao, whom most of the Chinese venerate. After taking a significant number of pictures (never again will I make fun of Asian tourists in the US who take pictures of everything), we headed over to Tiananmen Square. The square is directly across the street from the city, but there is so much traffic that they built a series of tunnels that go under the street so you don’t have to worry about crossing them if you don’t want to. They were definitely one of the greater things the Chinese did involving traffic, as crossing the streets can always be an adventure (Vietnam should be interesting). Anyways, Tiananmen Square is the largest square in the world, and there are monuments and huge buildings all around it. We didn’t really get to explore it too much, as we had to get going in order to get to the wall on time, but it was definitely cool to see. After Tiananmen Square, we headed to the Silk Market. The silk market is a massive building of about 6 floors, and they sell absolutely everything you can think of. They have an entire floor for clothes, another for luggage, another for jewelry, toys, whatever you can think of. Most of the stuff is comprised of wonderful knockoffs or goods acquired by means that are not entirely legal. We only had about 2 and a half hours to eat and shop, so Brittany and I did a little bit of shopping, but decided that we would go back and do some more on our last free day in Beijing. We ate at a buffet upstairs, and I was ecstatic to see that they had pizza! It was quite yummy, yet I do have one complaint…the Chinese don’t put sauce on their pizza! What is up with that? Pizza isn’t pizza unless it has sauce! Anyways, we all hopped back on the bus around 3 to make the journey to the section of the wall we were headed to, which was about 2.5 hours outside of Beijing.

 

I napped on the entire bus ride on the way to the wall. Naps in moving vehicles on the way to destinations are a lifesaver, mostly because I am up around 6:45 or 7 every day, including when I am actually in countries. I hardly, if ever, take naps on the ship. Sleep is a precious commodity, and I will take what I can get when in transit to various places. Plus, it makes those in between trips much better and faster. Anyways, when I woke up we were at the base of the Great Wall! We were told we would hike up a small section of the wall, watch the sunset, then come back down for dinner, then hike back up to the place we would sleep. It was about a 15 or 20 minute hike up to where we were going at this point, and it was so worth it. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous over the mountains, despite the ridiculous haziness that covered the entire landscape. China (Beijing especially) has terrible pollution problems, and I have never seen a place as hazy as Beijing, not even LA…and that is saying something. Anyways, back to the wonder that is the Great Wall. It truly is a wonder. It is over (if I remember correctly) over 4000 miles long and was built over the span of two different dynasties. It was originally built in two different sections, then eventually joined together by the final section of 12 miles. It is so hard to believe that people built it without any sort of technology other than human labor and human hands. The area around the wall is also a massive grave, as there were so many people that died while actually building the wall itself. It really is an incredible sight to behold, and I only got to see a small section of it. We then hiked back down the way we came, and it was much easier than going up. The one issue is climbing down the steps. Brittany is afraid of heights, so looking down was a little scary for her, especially because some areas didn’t have much of anything to hold onto. I had a different issue…telling how big the steps were. There are very few times when I have trouble with the whole one eye thing, but this was definitely one of them. The steps were sometimes really uneven, and it was very difficult to tell how far down I needed to step. The solution Brit and I came up with was to hold hands. That way we were both more steady and she could tell me if there was an unusually big step down. We probably looked absolutely hilarious walking down these steps hand in hand, but we didn’t care.

 

Once we hit the bottom, we got back on the bus and headed to a restaurant a little ways away. We sat down, and it was once again served family style. I am obsessed with family style restaurants, because it allows everyone to order something different and we all get to try a little bit of everything. This night was easy, as they had already set a menu for us. We had unlimited beer, which many people were excited about, and the food was so good! Before we left, all the girls used the bathroom, mostly because we weren’t exactly sure how we were going to manage this feat on the wall. Boys have it easy….they can pee off the side. Girls don’t have it quite as easy. Anyways, this is where I give my bathroom update. I ranted and rave about the toilets in Japan, which were ridiculous little technological wonders that warmed your bum as you used them. In China, you didn’t have the luxury of sitting even if you wanted to. The toilet was simply a porcelain hole in the ground. You (it gets a bit graphic) plant one foot on either side of the hole, pull your pants down, and squat. It is quite a leg workout. Oh and it’s a good idea to bring your own toilet paper, because they don’t have any half the time. And instead of throwing the toilet paper in the toilet and flushing, you throw the toilet paper in a trash can because half the time their sewage systems aren’t sophisticated enough to handle the toilet paper. It was quite the experience. It’s easy to do when you go camping, but when you walk into a public bathroom in a restaurant, one usually expects a wonderful porcelain throne on which to do business. Enough of that, back to my experiences outside of a bathroom.

 

We left the restaurant, got on the bus, and drove to the base of our section of the wall. Before we got off the bus, we all layered up. I had on two tank tops, 3 long sleeved shirts, a jacket, and another sweatshirt. a pair of underarmor bottoms, a pair of leggings, sweatpants, 2 pairs of socks, gloves, a beanie, a scarf, and tennis shoes. I was carrying my backpack with a bottle of water and a few other things in it, and I was ready for my hike…in the absolute dark of night. They did give each of us a flashlight, which was nice, but they weren’t very bright. We began our hike, and it took about 30 to 45 minutes, I don’t really remember. It was absolutely exhausting and mostly uphill, and I was sweating in all my layers by the time we got up to where we were going. We ended up at a big watchtower on a more unrenovated portion of the wall. Our sleeping bags and mats were already there waiting for us, as were bottles of water, juice, and (of course) beer. I didn’t have much, as I was trying to avoid peeing on the wall as much as humanly possible. Some of the girls and I went outside to look at the stars. We sat on one part of the wall turned our flashlights on, and the entire sky was illuminated. It was absolutely gorgeous, and it seemed as though every star in the sky was visible. We could see the red tinge of Mars, Orion’s Belt, and the Big Dipper. That many stars is something I never get the chance to see at home, because no matter where I go, there are always lights of some kind. It was awesome to sit on the wall with some new friends and look at the stars. Once we got back to our watchtower, we set up our sleeping bags. We each got two, so we put one inside the other to make them warmer. There were 3 of us squeezed in one small corner, but it sure kept us warm. Some of us passed out, but others stayed awake fairly late. We were going to start our hike relatively early the next morning, so sleep was definitely a priority.

 

This is the end of the first half of my China blog. I am close to done with the second half, but it is so long I figured it would be easier to do in two parts. Second half: Coming Soon!