Monday 22 October 2012

That's a Wrap

Hey there everyone!  Sorry about the brief post yesterday, but as I mentioned, I was feeling pretty under the weather.  A handful of over-the-counter medications and a good night's sleep later and I'm feeling much more like myself again.  We're at the airport now, chilling out in the Priority Pass Lounge, which feels very appropriate as this is the site of the very first photo I took on this vacation.  First though, I think I should recap yesterday to make up for my lack discussion on the subject last night.

We kicked things off early yesterday, not so much out of any precise schedule but more out of the knowledge that we were going to be cramming a lot of sightseeing into our last full day in China.  After breakfast we grabbed a ferry to Macao.  I showed you a photo earlier of the crossing at Gongbei Port, which is done on foot and is entirely land-based.  However, I was informed that the line-ups there are horrific, and that it's actually much quicker to head to the river and take a ferry across.  I can't speak to any line-ups at Gongbei, but there were very few people taking the ferry, and they run every half an hour, so it really was a very speedy process.

Macao is a former Portuguese colony that was returned to China in the 90s, and much like Hong Kong it's considered a Special Administrative Region that still maintains its own passport, customs, immigration, currency, etc.  There's still a fair bit of Portuguese on the signs, but Cantonese is the de facto language.  As we left the ferry terminal I snapped this shot:


At the time I was just grabbing a shot of huge volume of parked scooters along that wall, but I didn't realize how typical a shot that would turn out to be.  The buildings were very typical of that side of the river, and the cluster of scooters, I would soon find, was a small one.  I think there's a scooter for every man, woman and child in the city of Macao.  Wasn't long before I figured out why either.  Euphy called up a friend of her mom who maintains a residence in Macao, and she sent her driver over to pick us up.  Oh la la.  It's nice to have wealthy friends isn't it?  We headed out and I snapped a quick shot of the road:


I know that a picture taken from the back seat looking through the front windshield is hardly ideal, but you can see here the narrowness of the street we were on.  The car barely fit down there.  Also you can see that they drive on the left side of the road like a bunch of savages!

I was amazed at just how many roads there are just like the one shown above.  Two lanes are by far the rarity here, and as the driver deftly navigated the twisting alleyways with only a few inches to spare on either side of the vehicle I decided that a scooter would probably be a substantially more comfortable way to travel in Macao.  In our time there we rarely saw any roads that would allow travel in excess on 50 km/h, not because of the posted limit, but rather just narrowness of the roads, and the traffic.  Unless you had kids to shuttle around a large vehicle would be largely pointless.

Our first stop was St. Paul's Ruin, which is a really fascinating sight.  It's the front of a really old church.


Yup, I said "the front" on purpose, that's all that's left.  The plaque inside informed us that there was once a mighty cathedral here, but after it burned down for the third time they just didn't bother putting it back up, and left the façade, which was the only thing still standing.  I guess God really loved that church.  The image of this church has become something of a symbol of Macao; I'm not really sure I'd want something my vengeful deity had thrice smote being symbolic of where I live, but I guess that's why I'm not from Macao.

We stopped outside the ruins for a brief snack of egg tarts.  I've had egg tarts dozens of times back in Toronto as they're available at virtually every Chinese restaurant or food stalls in the Pacific Mall.  I've never been that thrilled with them honestly, although I attribute that partially to the fact that the bright yellow filling always makes me think that I'm about to have a lemon tart, and all food is a bit disappointing to me when compared to a lemon tart.  I mention all of this because after visiting China I will, without question, never be able to enjoy one of those little egg tarts in Toronto again; they're SO MUCH BETTER here!  The best by far, was the one we had outside St. Paul's Ruins.  The primary difference between the Chinese versions and the ones I always get in Toronto is that here they either bake them for longer, or actively torch the tops, because they're heavily caramelized on top, and that makes them taste fantastic.  The Macao versions (where, interestingly, they refer to them as Portuguese Egg Tarts) rose above the rest based on the fantastic quality of the pastry that contained it.  No stodgy frozen tart crusts here, just light, crispy pastry cradling caramelized egg filling.  Damn, now I want an egg tart.

Okay, moving on before I get hungry.

Our next stop was Macao Tower.


As I'm sure you can tell from the photo, it's a tall sightseeing tower.  Virtually a necessity in any large city.  We went up and took in the views, which really were spectacular.


I don't know if it was the day, the time of day, or some other factor that I'm not considering, but it was empty up there.  No line for the elevator.  Hardly any humans scurrying around the observation deck.  It was awesome!

What makes Macao Tower particularly interesting is that they've got a bungee jumping platform on the top which is the tallest commercial bungee in the world.  Pretty exciting stuff, and it looked like they were running a pretty solid operation there, so it would have been an interesting opportunity for me to finally try a bungee jump, but I opted out.  Bungee jumping, as interesting as it would be, always ends up seeming like poor value for money when I actually stop and consider it.  Well over one hundred dollars to throw myself off a building.  Nah.  Also, my stomach was bothering me, which is probably less than ideal for that kind of activity.

We headed from there across one of the many huge bridges that connects the sections of Macao and into the casino district.   Macao is (quite rightly) called the Asian Las Vegas, and just like their American namesake they've got a cluster of some casinos that are towering monuments to wealthy excess.


Our first stop was the Galaxy, and then we checked out, interestingly, The Venetian.  Sound familiar to Las Vegas fans?  It should, because it's modelled after the Sin City edition in exquisite detail.


The photo above should be shockingly familiar to anyone who has ever visited the Las Vegas edition of this hotel.

After a bit of gawking at the ludicrously large hotel/casino combos we grabbed lunch at Portuguese restaurant, which was an exciting change of pace.  After lunch we made our way over to the ferry terminal and booked passage to Hong Kong.

My first impression of Hong Kong was a grim one.  For the sake of common decency I won't go into details but suffice it to say that the facilities in Hong Kong's ferry terminal could use some attention... and this is coming from someone who just spent three weeks in mainland China.  Somebody invite the British back, this place still has some hospitality lessons to learn.

Practicality dictated that our first stop in Hong Kong should be our hotel, so we grabbed a cab and headed there.  After the stunning room in Zhuhai it was a bit of a shock to check in to our Hong Kong broom closet.


Yup, that's the whole thing right there.

It was a bummer because we were originally slated to stay with a friend of Euphy's Dad in what would have been an incredibly interesting accommodation since the friend in question is a two-star General (equivalent to Canadian rank, I'm told) in the Chinese army stationed in Hong Kong.  He'd invited us to stay at his house on the base, which would have been incredibly cool.  Unfortunately we had to grab a hotel at the last minute when there was some resistance to him bringing a white guy into a Chinese military base.  Understandable, certainly, but a bummer all the same.

After we dropped off our bags we headed to Hong Kong's Times Square.  There were some tall buildings, tv screens, and about eleventy billion people.  That's what I remember anyway.


We went into the main shopping centre that supports the square, and wandered around for a bit.  It's a giant bastion of American consumerism, a tower monument to designer brands.  We weren't in there long before I had a rather comical conversation with Euphy where I reminded her that not only am I not really into expensive boutique shopping, but also she's REALLY not into expensive boutique shopping.  It was sort of a silly place for either of us to be, so beat a hasty retreat to the subway and headed to some place with more our style of shopping.


The huge throngs of people in a typical Chinese street market always make me uneasy, but I'm usually able to get over it and lose myself amongst the vibrant lighting, a stalls selling odd, quirky goods that are far more interesting to me than any designer sunglasses.  We went wild for quite awhile in there until the oppressive humidity started to wear me down.  We stopped for dinner, but it was a downhill slide for me at that point, and I ended up feeling pretty poor for the rest of the evening.

We made a brief stop along the shore of Kowloon, looking back at the island so I could get some pictures, and then headed back to the hotel.


The General who we were going to stay with stopped by for a visit, but I wasn't able to chat with him much since everything had to be translated through Euphy, which is a laborious process, and I was beginning to feel genuinely awful at that point, so putting on a smile and engaging in some chit chat was becoming difficult. It was a real shame too because he seemed like a really interesting guy.  Something tells me that you don't get to be a General in the Chinese army without accumulating a couple stories.  I'm holding out hope that someday I will get another opportunity to sit down and have a talk with him... maybe I can even learn a bit of Mandarin before then.

Well, as I said before, I was able to get myself a good night's sleep and I'm feeling on the mend now.  Good thing too since I'm less than two hours now from getting on a plane.  We had breakfast this morning with Euphy's Dad and then said our goodbyes.  We had to check out of the hotel at 11:30, and our flight's at 5:05, which means being at the airport around 2:00.  With that little time, and needing to leave a fair amount of time just to get to the airport (or anywhere in this city if it involves even a short cab ride) we decided that there was no point in seeking out adventure.  We grabbed a cab and headed for the airport express train station.

The airport train in Hong Kong is a fantastic service.  They've got a train that runs from the island out to the airport, but they've put check-in counters for the major airlines in the station.  It was lovely being able to check our baggage and get our boarding passes before we even got on the train to go to the airport, really made that journey a lot more convenient.  We arrived at the airport much earlier than necessary, but it wasn't so bad given that we'd already checked our bags and knew that we had a ludicrous amount of time to get through security.  So we wandered around, had a drink, shopped for a little bit, and then casually meandered over to the security check.  The lines were short and it didn't take long before we were in the gate area.  We stopped in at the Priority Pass Lounge and got some food, and now we're just relaxing here and enjoying their WiFi.

So I guess that's it.  After so long on the road it's going to be incredibly difficult going back to a normal work week, but I'll be happy to see everyone back home.  It's been an amazing journey, and one that I'll remember for a lifetime.  It's hard to forget anything that you've taken over 2000 pictures of...

Sunday 21 October 2012

Quick Check-in From Hong Kong

Hey everyone, just doing a quick update right now.  We're in our hotel after a very long day of touring around Macao and Hong Kong.  I'd sit down for a proper blog but everyone here is anxious to call lights out, myself especially.  Either something I ate has finally disagreed with me after weeks of eating all manner of peculiar things, or I'm coming down with something, but either way I'm feeling very unwell today.  I tried not to let it slow me down too much today, but I really wasn't myself.  I've still got a ton of pictures though, and since tomorrow is an airport day you know I'll have tons of time to fill you all in.  Take it easy and I'll talk to you then.

Saturday 20 October 2012

Final Day in Zhuhai

Hi everyone!  How are you all doing today?

This wraps up our last day here in Zhuhai.  Tomorrow we're heading through the border into Macao, at which point I'll no longer be allowed back into China until I go home and get a new visa.  The plan is to spend a few hours sightseeing in Macao and then we'll catch a ferry to Hong Kong.  Euphy's Dad is going to join us for this final leg of the journey as he's got a friend in Hong Kong who we'll be staying with.  As usual, I'm not sure what the internet situation will be in Hong Kong, so a blog tomorrow is not a certainty.  Either way I'll be able to write on Monday since that's when we head to the airport and make our way home, so you won't go too long without an update.

We spent today with three of Euphy's friends from her time in school here.  We had a nice long brunch and then headed to the underground shopping mall at Gongbei Port.  I actually picked up, oddly enough, a pair of Beats headphones.  For the uninitiated, this is a high-end brand of headphones endorsed by rapper Dr. Dre that sells for a ridiculous amount of money.  I just looked up the simple bud-style earphones that I bought on Futureshop's website and they're going for $180.  Some of the studio headphones approach price tags of $400.  They're a bit of a fashion statement really, and I'm not usually the kind of guy who likes to make the statement "I spend $400 on headphones and then plug them into an iPod."  I'm sure you've all guessed by now that I didn't spend $180 on headphones.  I've wanted a new pair of bud-style earphones for awhile now, and the very obviously knock-off Beats headphones are EVERYWHERE in China right now.  There were random dudes sitting on the sidewalks of Shanghai selling only headphones.  Having walked past about a dozen stores selling these headphones I finally stopped to ask how much they were going for, just out of pure curiosity.  70RMB.  That's about $11 CAD.  What surprised me the most though was that the girl freely admitted that they weren't the genuine article.  She did say however that they were a 1-to-1 reproduction.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if the real ones are made in China and that these are just factory seconds.  Don't know, but I appreciated the honesty.  Also, she let me try them out and they actually sound really good, so hey, why not.  They could be any old regular headphones for that money, but I like to think that I'm walking around with Beats quality for $11.

Sorry to go on and on about headphones, but that was about the extent of my excitement for the day... we kept it pretty low key for the rest of the time.  We've pretty much wrapped up our packing, and we're getting ready to spend our final night in the Grand Inn Zhuhai.

Leaving Zhuhai tomorrow will be bitter-sweet.  After three weeks on the road I'm starting to get excited about getting home to see friends and family.  Also, as I mentioned to Euphy today, I'd kill for a cheeseburger.  Still, this last leg of our trip has been really awesome.  I've got to meet Euphy's family, our hotel room is great, and we've had a nice balance of tourism and chilling out.  Neither Euphy or I are exactly itching to get back to the daily grind, but it's tougher for her because there were a lot of goodbyes to family and friends today.  I suspect that it won't be too long before we find ourselves back in Zhuhai.

Friday 19 October 2012

What This Vacation Needs Now Is A Tropical Island

Good evening loyal minions!  How are you all today?

Today we got up early to catch a ferry out to Dongao Island.  There are over a hundred islands in the waters off the coast of Zhuhai, and ferries run out to several of them for easy day trips.  The ferry we took stopped at Guishan Island, which is the largest of them and unloaded a few people before heading out to Dongao.  From my brief glimpse of Guishan it looked fairly well populated, and there were cranes everywhere suggesting that it's under fairly heavy development.  As it's only about a 50 minute ferry ride from Zhuhai I can see it being a reasonable place to live even if you worked in Zhuhai.  Possibly a spot for a vacation home for the well-to-do as well, though I don't know if that's a common practice here or not.

The waters around Guishan were pretty calm this morning, and not a lot of spray was hitting the window, but this just meant that previous day's water had dried into a heavy salt film on the window.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to go outside, so I wasn't able to get any pictures on the way there.  It was a shame too because there were what appeared to be very large eagles fishing in the harbour at Guishan and I would have loved to try getting a picture of them.

A few people on the ferry were packing fishing equipment, so that must be a popular option at Dongao, but we were there just to enjoy the natural beauty, which was in abundance.  There's a very long path that goes around the outside of the island.


It also detours into the jungle a little bit too.


Oh, and there was some lovely sand under this rock, so I just lifted it up for a moment.


The humidity hasn't really abated since we've been here, and today was no exception to that rule, so it was a pretty sweaty walk.  Still, there was a terrific cool breeze coming in off the ocean which helped a lot, and Euphy had the foresight to bring a few bottles of water, so we had a pretty comfortable walk.  It's a great place to just wander around, and despite a brief encounter with a tour group that was acting like a gaggle of noisy idiots you'd really think we had the place to ourselves.  It wasn't all sweeping coastline and lush forest either.  After the British occupied Kowloon in the 1800s the Chinese moved their customs station to Dongao, and the ruins of the old customs house and the forts that protected it are still evident.


Okay, one more stunning vista then I'll move on.


It was a fair hike from where we started, but we came to a pretty nice beach.


I'd brought my swimsuit with me, but by the time I got to the beach I wasn't really feeling like a swim.  I didn't bring a towel, and since this wasn't a commercialized beach there weren't the sort of amenities you find at beach resorts such as a shower to wash the salt off.  As much as it was nice to NOT see those things spoiling the natural beauty, it did keep me out of the water.  Apparently someone is way ahead of me on that line of thought though, because just behind that beach (mostly out of camera) is a major construction project.  It wasn't long before we came to a road that connects that building site to the main port.  Turns out that they're building a huge beach resort on that site, and another one at a nearby beach is already well under way and slated for completion next year.

It'll be an amazing vacation spot when it's done, and a lovely way to enjoy the beautiful island in comfort, but I still couldn't help but feel really lucky that I was able to see the island before the resorts are complete and there are a lot more visitors there.

We actually went down to the beach that has a nearly complete resort on it.  It was kind of cool to see a resort beach as a work-in-progress like that.  Of course, it's not really a resort beach until there's a white guy acting like a tool on it.


There you go guys, NOW you've got a beach resort.  You're welcome.

There's already a shuttle service operating along the road from the port to the beaches that are spawning hotels, and we were pretty tired after walking there, so we hopped on one to get back to the port area.  We grabbed lunch at a restaurant by the water and just chilled out for a couple hours in the area until the ferry home arrived.

The seas were noticeably rougher on the way home, and the window by my seat was catching a lot of spray, which kept it free of salt build-up, but also kept a constant stream of water blurring the view outside.  Still, after our return stop at Guishan the rivulets of water settled down just long enough for me to snap this shot:


It's really interesting being on the water around the Zhuhai/Macao/Hong Kong area.  Everywhere you look there are ships!  Everything from huge cargo ships to tiny one-man fishing vessels.  That shot above is representative of what was out the window for the entire ferry ride.  It's pretty amazing really.  I'd heard that Hong Kong is the busiest port in the world, but it's hard to really grasp that concept until you're out there seeing for yourself just how much traffic there really is on the seas in that area.

Dusk was settling in by the time we got back to Zhuhai, and we headed out for dinner right from the ferry port.  The trip to Dongao made for a full day, and it was a great excursion for a less urban taste of the Zhuhai area.  It's been a great day, and I hope you're all doing well back home as well.  Talk to you again tomorrow!

Thursday 18 October 2012

This Vacationing Is Hard Work, Time To Unwind

Howdy everyone!  Hope you're all doing well today.  We started the day off with a trip to the cemetery to pay our respects to Euphy's Uncle and Grandfather whose ashes are interred together there.   It's customary to visit in order to keep the site clean as a sign of respect.  We then had lunch and headed back to the hotel. Apparently everyone was feeling a bit worn out so we decided that a siesta was in order.

After everyone had a good nap we headed back out again.  Apparently Euphy's Dad had decided that all this tourism was just entirely too much work for Euphy and I and that we needed to relax, so he took us to the spa.  I'd read about this spa previously on Wikitravel and it's quite the facility.  It's done up in the style of a Japanese Onsen with hot springs being the primary focus, but with various other relaxation methods such as massages available.  The first thing I saw when I got in there was a guy with parallel lines of angry red ovals running up his back; it took me a moment to realize that this was probably a result of a type of "therapy" where they put scalding hot rocks on your back.  I skipped that one.

The place was quite neat.  There were tons of little pools that you could soak in, and I didn't realize at first that they were all different in some way.  We started by dipping into a pool that was an unappealing brown colour, and I commented that it smelled quite a lot like coffee.  That's when Euphy looked up at the sign and informed that it was, indeed the coffee pool.  Turns out that they mix various things into each of the pools that are supposed to be good for you in various ways.  Not sure what the coffee is supposed to do aside from the possibility of giving you a wicked caffeine buzz.  I've read somewhere that you actually can absorb caffeine through your skin.  At one point we were soaking in a pool that was especially hot and filled with celery and I became convinced that we were being cooked.

There was a pool with milk mixed into the water, and it was a two-stage set up with the water flowing from one pool in a lovely cascade into another identical one.  This gave me the idea that they should set the coffee pool up next to it and have them both cascade into another pool to make the cafe au lait pool.  I'm a genius with this sort of thing.  I think I'll open a spa when I get home.  I'll be famous for the cafe au lait spa, and then the rest can just be filled with various vegetables that didn't get used in the previous night's dinner.

We had dinner at the spa, and then headed out to pay a quick visit to one of Euphy's aunts.  Now we're back at the hotel getting ready for bed.  My poor camera didn't even make it out of its bag today (didn't think snapping photos at the spa would go over well) so I've got no photos for you this time around.  I should make up for that tomorrow though since we're heading to one of the islands off the coast of Zhuhai which is supposed to be quite lovely.  We'll have to get up early for the ferry, so it's time for this thoroughly marinated traveller to call it a night.  Relax and be well my friends!

Wednesday 17 October 2012

The Empire Rebuilt

Good evening my friends.  I hope you're all doing well today.

The day started off slowly, as evidenced by my having time for an early blog post on random thoughts, but we put a lot into the afternoon.  Actually, things started getting really interesting right at lunch.  We were at a restaurant when Euphy asked me if there was anything I wanted and handed me the menu.  I usually leave it to Euphy and her family to choose what we're eating because I consider them more qualified, but I thought I'd browse through the menu anyway.  I've had good luck in China with menus; there seems to be a trend towards huge menus with detailed pictures of every item, so you don't have to read Chinese to be able to get something out of them.  I flipped through and discovered this:


Those are bamboo worms.  They look like little caterpillars, but Euphy thinks that they are just an insect that feeds on bamboo and that's what their adult stage looks like.  We haven't had a chance to research these yet to get more details on their life cycle, but I can report some scientific findings on their taste.  These little babies are delicious!  I was expecting something slightly bitter, or maybe very earthy like the roasted ants I've tried before, but these actually possess a very mild, subtle flavour.  They were lightly seasoned to help that stand out, and the end effect was more like a french fry with a bit of seasoning.  Fish and Worms, it's the next big dish.

Following my unexpected culinary adventure we went to... the Summer Palace actually.  No, we didn't hop on a flight back to Beijing.  You see, during the Opium Wars the original Summer Palace was burned to the ground by French troops.  The palace that we toured in Beijing was a reconstruction which was completed much later in the life of the Empire, and hence was slightly altered to fit modern styles and needs.  Someone however (I'm not sure who, and I'm not sure when) decided that some of those iconic buildings needed to be remembered, and so they reconstructed them, as close to the original design as possible, in a park in Zhuhai. There are also reconstructions of important buildings from the Forbidden City and a small replica of a section of The Great Wall.  It's like a little Chinese cultural insurance policy.


In the spirit of the Summer Palace they've made land that houses these buildings as serene and park-like as possible.


They've done a great job in beautifying the park, to the point that I actually found sections of it far more beautiful than any of the landscaping in the actual Summer Palace.


There's a small mountain along one edge of the park, and they've put in a cable car up to the top.  There's a path as well, so climbing is an option, and one-way tickets on the cable car are available, and it looked like a beautiful, natural walk up.  However, it's still about a billion degrees with the humidity here, and the cable car is insanely cheap, so we opted to take it both directions.  Here's a panorama I stitched together from the top:


It's a sprawling park, and we spent most of the afternoon there wandering around.  There's even a hedge maze!  It was very entertaining, especially for the entry fee of zero dollars.  We're not sure why, but apparently starting today there's no entry fee.  Maybe this is the beginning of the tourism off-season?  Either way, we picked the right day to visit.

After our afternoon stroll we headed over to visit Euphy's Aunt.  I'd attempted a couple photos from their balcony a couple days ago in the evening, but the view is much better during the day.  Here's a shot of Lover's Road, which winds along the coast.


After dinner with family we headed down to Lover's Road to enjoy the night scenery.  While I'm still at the point where a huge percentage of my photos are taken in "Auto" mode, this is where I love having a full-featured camera that I can throw into full manual.  The automatic settings weren't getting me anywhere in the very low light, but throwing into manual, opening the aperture up as wide as it would go and setting the shutter to five seconds yielded some much more impressive results.  Fortunately I had a little mini tripod with me as well.  I couldn't get it quite level, but I'm still happy with the photos.



Well, that's all from me for today.  Tomorrow... I'm not sure, as usual.  One thing I am sure of though is that it'll be fun!

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Random Thoughts

Good morning everyone!  Euphy's out with her dad taking care of a bit of business this morning, so I've got some free time to get down a few of the more random observations on China that I've had floating around in my head.  Here goes!

-The first pot of tea is for cleaning your dishes
If eating in Chinese restaurants with locals you may, from time to time, observe this little ritual.  Everyone takes turns grabbing the ubiquitous pot of tea and begins pouring it over their chopsticks, spoons, bowls and plates.  The server then provides a large bowl for everyone to discard this tea into, and a fresh pot of tea for actual consumption.  What's been baffling me about this is the apparent randomness of it.  While travelling with the tour group in Beijing I only witnessed it once, despite the fact that we were eating in (very similar) restaurants together twice a day.  Euphy's been unable to clarify exactly what inspires this activity.  Again with her family I saw them go through the ritual once at dinner, but not again at other restaurants.  If there's something that tips you off that perhaps the dishes haven't been cleaned to your standards I'd imagine you'd be better served by visiting a cleaner establishment.  This one's still a bit of a mystery to me.

-The often mentioned spitting
Read much on travel in China and the commonness of spitting is sure to come up.  I've been told that the Chinese consider it quite unhealthy to swallow phlegm.  So while as much as it seems to gross out foreign tourists when they see Chinese casually spitting in public, I imagine that when we give a good, throaty cough and then DON'T spit our Chinese hosts think we're pretty disgusting.

-Washrooms
Always carry a pack of tissues with you because about half the washrooms you visit will not have toilet paper available.  Also I found in Beijing since we were hitting a LOT of touristy spots that it was beneficial to make use of the facilities even if you didn't have a pressing need to do so.  That way you were far less likely to be in urgent need of a washroom and find that the only available one is a nightmare-spawning terror factory.  Which happens sometimes.

-Being a passenger in a car
Not for the faint of heart!  By this point I've taken quite a few taxis and been driven around in a several people's private vehicles, always in the back seat.  I had a seatbelt once.  The vast majority of the cars that I've ridden in appear to have come from the manufacturer without rear seatbelts for some reason.  I've had a look and there's clearly just no spot where one would have been.  On occasion in taxis I've found a seatbelt over my shoulder but the receptacle for it seems to have, bafflingly, been removed.  Not really sure what that's all about, but it's something you should be prepared for if travelling in China.  You're probably not going to have the option of a seatbelt, and you may need to prepare yourself mentally for that because the roads are SCARY here.  Which brings me to my next point:

-Driving
I desperately wanted for Euphy and I to be on our own while in Beijing so we could see the sites in a more efficient manner, but that would have involved either the expense of taking taxis and buses or the far less appealing alternative of renting a car.  Euphy's Dad told me yesterday that over the week-long National Day holiday that just passed there were 68,000 car accidents leading to about 750 deaths.  In one week.  The real kicker about that statistic?  Those are people declared dead on the scene.  Apparently if you die in hospital or even on the way there, that doesn't count for some reason.  I failed in any appreciable way to be shocked by that.  After nearly three weeks of being a passenger in a car I'm still not sure I have a grasp on how driving even works around here.  From what I can tell though the fundamental rules of the road are similar to what we have in Canada... it's just that here they are more in the nature of suggestions.  It really does look like everyone does whatever is most convenient for them at any given moment.  I should stop for a moment here and clarify that this is just within the cities, highway driving seems to be pretty normal and civilized.  From my observations I've concluded that your best course of action if forced to drive in a Chinese city of any real size would be to just take it really easy:

  • Go with the flow, but be on the slower side of the flow.
  • Is someone approaching a position where they may be able to cut you off?  They are going to.  They ARE.  Let it happen.
  • That guy in the left hand turn lane?  Not necessarily turning left.  Maybe turning right.
  • Size matters.  Buses know they can crush you and that gives them right of way.  Same goes for a car if you're on a bike.
  • Bicycles, mopeds, electric scooters, and the like are easily as common as cars, and just as bat crap insane.  Keep your eyes peeled.
  • Be liberal with the horn.
That last point really stands out here too.  I think North American travellers may be inclined to think that everyone over here is highly aggressive due to the amount of horn honking you hear.  It really is a steady beeping anywhere near a busy street.  I've noticed that in North America the horn really only means one thing, and that's a profane statement about another driver's mother.  The rest of the world uses that single beep to convey a huge range of ideas, and I think I've translated most of them.  From most to least common:
  • Pardon me, I don't think you've noticed me, but I'm here and have no desire to die in a fiery crash with you.
  • I know you think that I'm going to let you in this lane, but I have no intention of doing so.  Please desist in this course of action before we both die in a fiery crash.
  • Salutations pedestrian!  You may not be aware of this, but you're walking in the middle of the road, and are about to die.
  • Say chap, you're in the way, mind moving along?
  • Your slow/inept driving has caused me hate you with every fibre of my being.  Please die.
That last one, the Common North American Car Horn Honk, is by far the least common.  It's just so bloody chaotic here that I think you really would need to be pretty Zen about the whole situation or you'd spend your entire time behind the wheel in a blind rage that would swiftly lead to kind of reckless aggression that must get people killed.  Just bob, weave, and honk, you'll be fine.

Well that's about it.  Those are just some random observations that have been floating around in my mind for awhile now which I haven't had the time before now to get down in writing.  Enjoy, and I'll talk to you all later!

Takin' It Easy

Salutations!  It's the end of another day in Zhuhai and I'm feeling pretty relaxed.  We actually did spend a brief portion of the morning being tourists today, but for the most part it was just visiting family and shopping.  We started with a trip to the Fisher Girl Statue which is considered one of the major symbols of Zhuhai.


The name Zhuhai is composed of two Chinese characters: "Zhu" means "Pearl" and "Hai" means "Sea".  Interestingly that's the same "Hai" as in Shanghai, which means "Above the Sea".  Zhuhai's name comes from the fact that it's the point where the Pearl River meets the South China Sea.  The statue of a fisher girl holding a giant pearl is therefore appropriately symbolic.  There's an interesting legend associated with that, but rather that repeat it here I will simply suggest that you read the Wikitravel article on Zhuhai.

There is a mountain that separates parts of Zhuhai, with a lovely tunnel running through it.  After our trip to the statue we headed toward the tunnel, but got off the main road at the last minute and got onto a very small road that runs part way up the mountain to take in the view.


You can see from that shot that it's still unfortunately hazy here in Zhuhai.  I was getting a lot of that same haze in Beijing until we had a good overnight rain one night which cleared things up considerably.  Sadly a quick Google search for Zhuhai weather does not anticipate any showers, overnight or otherwise, for this week.  Oh well, sunny days all the way through are also good.

After that little offering to the tourism gods we spent the rest of the day visiting either family or shopping malls.  Euphy was loving all the great deals you can get on clothes and shoes here.  Unfortunately for me the things that I usually look for in a mall are almost identically priced to those in Canada, so there's no real likelihood of me coming home with a new camera lens or cellphone.  Also the few men's clothing stores that I poked my head into seemed to offer one of two things: spiffy collared shirts for the working man, which I wouldn't be caught dead actually going to work in, or (inexplicably) row upon row of plaid shirts.  I loved the 90s as much as the next guy, but unless I was just in a really weird mall don't expect me to come home with a whole new wardrobe.

We wrapped up the day by having dinner out with a bunch of Euphy's family.  I'm not sure what the restaurant was called, or what particular style they were serving up, but it was awesome.  We had some weird little eggs that were and absolutely terrifying shade of green but were really quite delicious cooked up with some wee little hot peppers.  There was also camel!  Never had that before now.  It was fantastic too.  I was expecting a beef-like red meat, but it was quite firm and pale, reminded me slightly of pork.  I'm not sure if that's just the cut we had or if that's typical of camel.  It was served up thinly sliced on a skewer like a kebab and cooked with some potent little hot peppers.  There were also green beans cooked with these fiery peppers, some pork intestines with hot peppers, a bun stuffed with BBQ pork and hot peppers, something that I think was chicken cooked with some really hot peppers, and this stewed fish dish which for some reason tasted really bland to me.  Can't figure that one out.

Anyway, they finished the meal with a doughy thing rolled in sugar that cut the heat, and the doctors say that I should be able to taste things that aren't peppers by Christmas.

During our shopping outing today I picked up a bottle of red wine that was produced here in China from Chinese-grown grapes.  I thought that was pretty cool and wanted to give it a shot.  I actually got to try it at dinner since the restaurant apparently had no issue with us bringing our own wine in.  Unfortunately massive sinus congestion does not facilitate wine tasting, but as far as my limited senses could tell it was pretty good.  Just kind of a typical red wine with no great standout features, though again that could just be my cold talking.  I've still got a fair amount of it with me.  Everyone grabbed a glass at dinner, but I think I was the only person that had more than a thimble-full.  I don't think that China has really established much of a passion or culture for the consumption of European-styled red wines at this point, though it could have just been my particular selection of drinking companions.

Well, Euphy's out getting her hair done and I think I'm going to kick back and enjoy the rest of that wine.  Have a good day everyone!

Monday 15 October 2012

Oh, it's SOUTHERN China! Right.

Salutations readers!  How are you all today.

So Euphy had warned me on a few occasions that Zhuhai is very hot and humid, but I never really paid it much mind.  I mean, China temperate, similar temperatures to Canada right?  Well that may be true for Beijing, we're WAY South of the capital in Zhuhai and yeah, it's hot and humid all right.  I was outside for maybe 30 seconds before my shirt was glued to my back and I was wondering why I'd bothered showering this morning.  That was a bit of a shocker for me considering that we're half way through October, but having a quick look at Google Maps it sure looks like Zhuhai is sitting at a similar latitude to Florida or Cuba.  So yeah, should maybe have expected the tropical weather.  Fortunately my entire wardrobe is light, quick-drying stuff, so at least I'm dressed for it.

Today after breakfast we headed over to the convenience store that Euphy's Dad owns to spend a little bit of time chatting with her Grandma.  We then hopped in a cab and made our way to Gongbei Port, which forms the border between Zhuhai and Macao.


That massive building in the centre is the border, but just underneath it is a huge underground shopping mall that we wander around in for awhile... mostly just for the air conditioning.  After that we headed out on food to go tour the nearby neighbourhood where Euphy used to live as a small child.  We saw her old apartment, and her former kindergarten.


It says right on the building that it's a kindergarten, but technically they go right up to Grade 3 there.  After that Euphy was at a new school, and they moved to place closer to that school, which we also visited.

Euphy's Mom still owns the place, we hung out there for awhile and looked at old photo albums from Euphy's childhood.  It's been a really neat experience getting to see this big piece of her past.

Zhuhai is an amazing place.  Like I mentioned before, I get this fixed image of China as being like Beijing, but this is a massive country in all directions, and in the South it's very much tropical.  I snapped a picture out the window while we're at Euphy's Mom's condo, and I really think that I could convince people that I took this picture in the Caribbean.


Having firmly established that my Geography skills need some work we headed back to our hotel.  I snapped a few pics, and here's one taken from just behind our computer desk that I think shows a good view of how nice we've got it here.


The rest of the day was pretty quiet for us.  We spent the better part of the afternoon hanging out with Euphy's Grandma, and then after dinner we headed out to visit some Aunts and Uncles.  One family had a condo with this groovy view from the balcony, which made my evening:


So that's about it for the day.  A little bit less touristy, and more just chilled out and relaxing, which has been very nice.  Euphy's expressed some concern that I'm going to be bored, but honestly the change of pace has been a welcome one.  We saw some amazing things in Beijing and Shanghai, but it was a tiring process as well.  I'm perfectly happy to just do the odd little bit of sightseeing and spend the bulk of our time in Zhuhai hanging out with family and letting my batteries recharge a bit.  This is, after all, a vacation.

I'm calling it a night now, have a great day to everyone in time zones where your days are just starting!

Sunday 14 October 2012

Checking-in From Zhuhai

Howdy loyal minions!  Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday, but we didn't get in to our hotel until late, and I was in no frame of mind to be writing.  Yesterday was a day dedicated entirely to travel and illness unfortunately, and the camera didn't even come out of it's protective Pelican case in my carry-on.  That marks the first day this trip that my camera hasn't got any exercise.  I'll have to take it for a walk today...

We had a 9:45 flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong yesterday, and Euphy's Uncle assured us that Shanghai's airport wouldn't be busy and the recommended three hours wouldn't be necessary, so we were able to sleep in a bit.  Got to the airport by 8:00, which is MUCH later than I would normally show up for a flight, but the place was very quiet and we had no trouble checking in and getting through security.

Things went noticeably downhill from there I'm afraid.  Our use of Tylenol Cold seems to be making us somewhat immune to it's effects, and it's becoming less and less potent every time we use it.  We were both feeling crappier by the minute unfortunately.  We got on the plane as scheduled, but then the pilot came on and told us that they couldn't take off at 9:45 because if they did there would be nowhere in Hong Kong for us to land as it was just too busy.  So we sat at the gate for an hour and a half.  They were at least kind enough to turn on the entertainment system so I could watch a bit of TV.  I'm sure we've all had worse things in life than a 1.5 hour delay at an airport, but the unfortunate side effect of that delay was that we just narrowly missed the 2:00 ferry to Zhuhai, and had to wait around Hong Kong's airport for three hours to catch the next one.  I was going to make a blog post at that point but the WiFi there seemed to cut out every 2-3 minutes.

On our way to Beijing we had a transfer in Hong Kong, and we spent the bulk of it in the Priority Pass lounge, so I didn't see a lot of the airport, but in walking from the lounge to our gate it seemed really nice.  Actually, it seemed like a GIANT shopping mall.  The walk from the lounge to the gate took about twenty minutes and was lined with stores the whole way.  So, that being my impression of the airport I wasn't too worried about killing a few hours there.  Well it turns our arrival gate from Shanghai was in some little ghetto corner of the airport with a convenience store and crappy little noodle restaurant.  You could go through immigration into Hong Kong, or catch a ferry from there, that's about it, so I don't think it was built with the intention that people would be spending any great deal of time there.  At that point we were both really feeling like crap, so it was a long wait.

When we got on the ferry though it was pretty nice.  It only took about an hour to get into Zhuhai, and it was a very smooth ride.  Unfortunately the haze that seemed so omnipresent when we first arrived in Beijing was thick and heavy in the Hong Kong and Zhuhai areas.  The vague silhouettes of the surrounding landscape suggested that I could have got some beautiful shots of the area on a clear day.  Euphy assures me that a clear day in Hong Kong is a thing of myth though.

So we got into Zhuhai at 6:00 instead of the intended 3:00 which meant that instead of heading to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes it was straight off to a restaurant where Euphy's Dad had assembled her entire extended family for a huge banquet to welcome us.  It was a hell of a spread, but unfortunately I just wasn't into eating as the combo of a day's travelling and an increasingly nasty head cold had left me pretty beat down.  Kind of a bummer state to be in when meeting the whole family.

Fortunately we were able to retire to the hotel right after that.  Euphy's Dad made all the arrangements for us here in Zhuhai, and he's got a friend who hooked us up with a swanky hotel room for cheap.  I'll post pictures later, but yeah, we're staying pretty comfortably here.  A good night's sleep was very helpful, and while this cold is still very much with me, I'm feeling a lot better than yesterday.  Here's hoping that it stays mellow today and that another good night's sleep can finally get me back to 100%.  At this point I'm not even sure what the itinerary is for the day, so I'm going to go get dressed and see what the day holds for me in terms of adventure.

I'll talk to you all later!

Saturday 13 October 2012

Slow Day in Shanghai

How's everyone doing today?

As the title of this post suggests, we had a bit of a slow day today.  This cold has hit us both pretty hard, especially Euphy who really wasn't feeling well at all.  We weren't feeling too bad in the morning, so we headed into town, got some Tylenol cold and sinus medication and went round to visit a temple in the area.  Jing'an Temple is an absolutely massive, gold-plated place of worship.  It was actually a bit strange being in there; while they welcome tourists and there were plenty of us wandering around with camera, it's also an active Buddhist temple.  The thing with Buddhism is that there isn't a fixed time or day when you can worship, so a temple will have people coming and going all the time.  I actually felt a little bit invasive wandering around snapping pictures while people were going about their spiritual business.


The usual forms of worship seem to be the burning of incense, and praying at alters scattered throughout the temple.  One peculiar activity on display though centred around the tradition of throwing coins onto spiritual or lucky objects.  Almost any shrine in the country will be covered in coins, but what stood out about the pagoda-shaped... thingy... in the centre of the temple was that it appeared to be incredibly difficult to get the coins to stay on the sloped roofs.  I think the idea was to try to get the coins IN the giant urn at the base, but the intricate designs on the openings made that a tricky task.  The whole time we were there people were whipping coins at this thing, and often missing.  Coins were flying all over the courtyard; it was actually pretty comical.


The central part of the temple housed a massive statue of Buddha which was a really eye-catching and peculiar shade of blue.  I'm not sure what it was made out of.  I would have taken a picture but I was told during an earlier temple visit on this trip that it's considered very disrespectful to take photos of the depictions of the gods that are kept in temples.  My desire to show respect trumps my natural desire to photograph everything in sight.  I did feel a bad when I heard that though because I think that means I've disrespected a fair number of temples in my day.

After soaking up a bit of spirituality we headed across the road to a Shanghai Number 1 restaurant where we were meeting up with Euphy's friend Julie.


Euphy and Julie are old friends from school, and apparently Julie and her fiancé are moving to Calgary at the end of the year.  Calgary was already on our list of domestic vacation spots for 2013, but I think it just got a big bump up the list.

The menu in this place is a 130-page tome full of detailed pictures of every dish, as well as old photos of local celebrities from years past.


I mostly just let the ladies figure out what we were eat and kicked back on the comfy red couch.


My only real contribution to the meal was to say that we absolutely had to have Bullfrog when I saw that on the menu.


I've eaten frog's legs before, but that was ages ago, and I've never had frog just chopped up like this, so it was a fun dish to try.  The frog meat was incredibly tender and flaky, like a nice piece of fish, with an incredibly mild and subtle flavour that I got to enjoy for about a quarter of a second before my face caught fire.  Those little red peppers show up a lot in Northern Chinese cuisine.  Sometimes if you simple eat around them you're okay.  Sometimes they permeate a dish and lend their potency to every bite.  This dish was an example of the latter case.  Quite hot, but also very delicious, and I couldn't help myself, so I asked Euphy to order a Coke for me and forged ahead.


After a big meal and a dose of cold medication Euphy and I could barely stand.  Euphy was feeling worse by the minute too, so we decided to just call it a day after lunch and headed back home.  We've spent the better part of the afternoon napping, and now at 8:10 p.m. Euphy appears to already be down for the count.  I'm probably going to follow her example as soon as I'm done writing this too.  We've got an early morning flight out to Hong Kong tomorrow, and then we're catching the ferry over to Zhuhai.  I hold no illusions of tomorrow being easy or relaxing, so I'm trying to get as much rest now as I can.  I really have no desire to be getting on a plane while feeling like crap.  With any luck a good night's sleep will put us both back on our feet tomorrow.

So that's all for today I'm afraid.  Not exactly how we'd have chose to spend our final afternoon in Shanghai, but we've still got a lot of vacation ahead of us, and pushing ourselves through some sightseeing while not feeling well would have been unpleasant and likely just prolonged the problem.  So we've had a day of rest and I'm sure we'll be better off for it tomorrow.

I hope everyone has had a lovely day today, and I'll talk to you all tomorrow from Zhuhai!

Friday 12 October 2012

Good Morning Shanghai

Hello everyone!  How are you all doing today?  Sorry about the short post yesterday, but it was getting on in the evening by the time we got settled in, and I wanted to get to bed.  I'm pretty sure Euphy and I are both coming down with a cold, so I'm trying to get as much sleep as possible.  I guess that's just the joys of operating in densely crowded urban areas - you're bound to pick up something.  I tried to get a post up this morning, but my net connection dropped out and I didn't have time for a troubleshoot.  Trying to cover yesterday and today in one shot.

Yesterday was quite the day!  It started off with a bit of a hiccup with the flight to Shanghai.  Unfortunately, since the Beijing to Shanghai run is a domestic flight the weight allowances for luggage and carry-on aren't as high as all the rest of our flights which, either starting or ending in Hong Kong, are considered international.  So we really struggled to repack things in a way that none of our bags would be too heavy.  After all that effort we ended up overweight on both of our bags... and the guy at the check-in counter didn't seem to care at all.  Seemed like a real wasted effort.  Then, as the plane was boarding we decided to not fight our way to the front of the line and just let it clear up.  So as we were near the end of the queue of people getting on the plane we saw all these business travellers with clearly no checked luggage putting multiple massive carry-ons in the overhead bins, leaving no room for ours.  It was a bit of a slap in the face given that we went to every effort to ensure that our carry-on luggage conformed to the rules and then they told us that they would have to check them because there wasn't enough room.  I informed them that since I was following the rules while other people were trying to cram full-sized suitcases into an overhead bin that there was no way in hell that I was checking my camera.  They found a spot for it.

So, all was well there, just more of an irritation than anything.  Also, when we landed in Shanghai my watch band completely fell apart.  I bought a watch with a metal band just to avoid that situation, but apparently the little bit that actually connects it to the watch was still just soft rubber, and after years of being on my wrist it eventually just rotted away.  So a bit of a bummer there as well.

The day picked up considerably after that though!

Euphy's Uncle (her Dad's cousin, I think the term Uncle is sufficient) picked us up from the airport and brought us into downtown Shanghai, which looks something like this:


Where Beijing feel just plain massive, Shanghai seems modern and vibrant.  The great weather we've had may contribute somewhat to my high opinion of this city, but it just comes across as very, very cool.

Euphy's Uncle is the manager of an up-scale Chinese restaurant in the heart of the Pudong region (pictured above) which is on the East shore of the river.  He treated us to a great lunch at the restaurant (Jun Yue Xuan, eat there if you're in Shanghai) and then sent us off with a friend to check out the Shanghai World Financial Centre which is Shanghai's tallest building... for now.  I get the feeling that title changes hands a lot around here.  They're building a tower right next door that is supposed to surpass the SWFC upon completion.



That's the SWFC just to the left, looking like a giant bottle opener.  At any rate, SWFC is still the reigning king, and our friend managed to get us into a small tour to the observation deck up top for free.  Sweet deal!  The elevator shoots you up, counting both floors and meters above the ground until we hit 100 floors and just shy of 500 meters.  The observation deck is a funky structure with terrific views out over the city.



Also, there's a washroom on the 93rd floor where the urinals face a window so you can look down on all the little people as you do your business.  That alone is worth the cost of admission, even if you common folk do have to pay to get in.

After we'd finished our tour Uncle's friend drove us over to the other side of the river to an area of the city called City God Temple.  There's actually a temple there called that, but apparently the whole neighbourhood gets that moniker as well.  To get from one side of the river to the other by car there's a tunnel:


Brief side note here, feel free to skip this paragraph if you aren't Jay.  Dude, this tunnel has got to be about two kilometers long and while nothing with enough power passed to prove my hypothesis, I believe that the tiles on the walls should lend the appropriate... ahem, acoustic qualities.  Now we just need to find a way to get our hands on something supercharged in Shanghai and we've got the makings of an entire vacation.

Back to reality.

We were dropped off in the City God Temple area of Shanghai and left to our own devices.  After the skyscrapers of Pudong it was a really shift when we found ourselves in a much older district of town.


While Shanghai seems to primarily composed of the ultra-modern, they have managed to maintain huge swaths of the old city.  In the heart of this collection of ancient building is the Yu Yuan Garden, a former private garden of an Imperial administrator that has been turned into a public park.  While a lot of the Imperial palaces/residences that we visited in Beijing were impressive in sheer scale, this impressed with its beauty and attention to detail.


The place was a labyrinth of small buildings, paths, ponds, and rock formations that formed twisting corridors.


I have no idea how long we wandered around in there, but when we got out my camera battery was dead.



Even the doors in this place were funky.


To Euphy's delight the fish in several of the ponds were so accustomed to the constant presence of tourists that simply kneeling down at the edge of a pond would cause them to flock to the surface and open their mouths for food.


After spending the afternoon marvelling at the design of the garden we returned to Uncle's restaurant where he put on a feast for us and some of his senior staff.  Sushi, jellyfish, sea bass, Wagyu beef... by the end I was about ready to fall out of my chair.  I was also more than a little embarrassed that I could only say "thank you" in Cantonese; it really didn't seem sufficient to convey my gratitude.  A few of our dinning companions were lovely young ladies who seemed fascinated by the strange white person sharing a table with them and have asked where they could procure one of their own.  A note to my single white male friends: learn Mandarin.  Right now.

By the time we left the restaurant it was dark and I'd had time to put a bit of a charge on my camera, so we headed out to the river to take some night scenery shots.  The area on the East side of the river was home to the old embassies and consulates when China first opened the port of Shanghai to foreign trade, and since Mao had the foresight to ban the use of heavy weapons during the liberation of the city many of them still stand today, just as they were in the 1800s.  That stretch of the city is referred to as The Bund for reasons that elude me, but it makes for some great night shots.



I even managed to stitch a few of the consecutive ones together manually, and since night eliminated the usual problem of shifting light source during the sweep from shot to shot, they actually went together quite well.


So, concluding that important business we returned home.  Uncle's brother is a doctor famed for his research into ailments of the kidneys, and so travels the globe almost perpetually, but maintains a home in Shanghai where we've been welcomed.  So having been treated to free meals, driven around all day, and given a free pass up to Shanghai's tallest building, we retired for the day in a bedroom on the top floor of a doctor's house.  This portion of the trip is making me feel like a VIP.

So that was yesterday.  I didn't get a chance to blog since we got in quite late, but I was able to sort through my pictures with a little bit of help from my GIANT BRAIN!  This is my first major trip with my new camera, and I'm finding that having better equipment has really liberated me to take shots that I wouldn't have previously attempted.  The downside to this is that I am photographing like an absolute madman and often coming home at the end of the day with 100-200 pictures to rename.  Fortunately I'm horrifyingly lazy, so I cranked out a Perl script to do it for me.  I still have to go through them to delete the failed experiments and set some basic naming parameters, but then the script does in 10 seconds what was taking me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.  I win.

That said, while I'm saving a huge amount of time now on photo organization, the writing of this blog has not yet been automated, and it does take me awhile.  It's getting late (again) so I'm going to have to try to be a little more brief going through today's events.  Fortunately that will catch me up, so hopefully tomorrow's blogging adventure will go a little more smoothly.

We got dropped off this morning at Nanjing Road, a huge shopping district that is pedestrian-only for some of it's length.  We took our time wandering around there until we made our way back to the river.  At the point we wanted to check out the Pudong side again.  Now for a traveller's pro tip: there's a ferry that operates between Pudong and The Bund quite frequently and it only costs 2 RMB.  That's about $0.30 Canadian.  Now, I didn't know this, but what I did know is that we were looking for a way across the river, and were standing beside The Shanghai Sightseeing Tunnel.  We'd been warned by a few sources that it was a bit hokey, but I thought that even if it was lame it would be a quick way across the river.  It is that, but at 50 RMB for a one-way trip it can't really compete with the ferry.  Also if you're allergic to stupid things it could be a fatal trip.  It's just a tram that runs through a tunnel that they've set up a really goofy light show in. Nothing too bad if you go in knowing that it's not going to be earth shattering in its awesomeness, but still not worth the cost of admission.

Number one, set course for the Lame Quadrant, maximum warp.Number one, set course for the Lame Quadrant, maximum warp.


Anyway, we made it over and enjoyed a lovely sunset over The Bund.


We then did the wise thing and took the ferry back.

That's a bit of a condensed version of today, but it really is getting late, and as I mentioned before, I think I'm getting sick so it really is time for bed.  I hope you're all having a great day, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.