Last day in Shanghai

Once again, we had problems sleeping last night. We fell asleep around 8, woke up at midnight, and finally feel back asleep around 4am. We woke up around 8am (unwillingly might I add) and went to breakfast. We loaded up on caffeine, went back to the room for an hour or so and then went out on the town.

Our plan for the day was to go to an area called Yuyuan Gardens. This is one of the only areas left in Shanghai that maintains the "old" Chinese look. Much of Shanghai is filled with new age sky scrapers so we were excited to see a different part of the city.

We left the hotel around 11 and went straight to the Metro. We were shocked by how many people we saw on the way to the Metro and at the Metro station! It was easily double (if not more) the amount of people we saw on Thursday. Let me just say, if I can make it through the subways in China, I can do anything! It was quite the experience.

This is just outside our hotel. Starting to see some conjestion.

This is inside the Metro station. You can see there are a lot of people. Unfortunately I don't think the picture really does the experience justice!

And this is Nanjing Road...a little different scene than 2 days ago, huh?

We started our walk to the gardens, by way of Nanjing Road and The Bund. Here are a couple of things we saw on our way:

Lots of people (I don't think I have ever seen so many scooters and bikes in my life)! You gotta be careful of them too....they don't often slow down for peds.

This is a bronze lion (actually a replica of the "real" bronze lion) that sits in front of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Apparently it brings good luck if you rub the lion - so of course I made sure to do so!

I thought this was an awesome picuture of the Pearl Tower and the Chinese flag!

And this was a very cool boat we saw along the Huangpu River. We knew we were getting close to "old town" when we saw this.

We had a few minor problems finding "old town" but we eventually got there. As soon as we rounded the corner we saw the buldings change. My body went into sensory overload with all the people, sounds, food smells, and shopping. It was incredible!

This is what all of the buildings looked like in this area.

And again, you can see there were lots of people!

We shopped and wandered for a while and then went into the gardens, that were right in the middle of all of the shopping. The gardens were a nice get away from all the noise and people - don't get me wrong the gardens were still crowded, but it was a much different scene.

In front of one of the 30 different pavilions in the garden area.

Just beautiful! Although I think it is rather amusing that you can see sky scrapers in the background.

So many Koi fish in one of the ponds.

I thought this tree was awesome....Kevin is OK too! :)

One of the very few pictures we took together this trip.

Kevin in front of a few pavilions.

I couldn't help myself....the hole in the rock was so inviting.

The whole garden was surrounded by these dragons.

I thought this was pretty cute!

This bridge was pretty cool.

Although we didn't get to see much, we had an awesome trip! We were very intimidated at first, but everything turned out great. We are looking forward to the possibility of going back next year, and maybe actually getting to see Hong Kong too.

We are finally home now - after 24 hours of traveling - and it feels great! At this point, I do not have any more trips planned with Kevin, but I will continue to update with happenings in our life. My surgery is scheduled for May 8, so that is definitely the next big step for me! I can't wait to travel again as a new, healthier person. Thanks again for your interest in our travels! Stay posted!

What a Great day

This blog is going to be a bit different today (because there is another person writing it.)  Last night I told Jessie that it was interesting how our writing styles differed (I would do it differently), and this evening, there were a few great things to write about, so Jessie said "hey, do you want to Blog-it-up this time?" (Translation - You try and do it better)!  Here we go.

After a long night of not sleeping (I was awake for just a bit over 24 hours), we drug our bodies out of the bed and went to the breakfast lounge only to find out that we were not the early birds today.  There were very slim pickings for breakfast and so being that we were very hungry, and that we are americans, we weren't shy about cleaning them out.  There was a steady flow of people into the lounge, so finally they brought more food in and so back we went to get more.  Breakfast food in most foreign countries is nothing like it is in the US.  The food here is probably the best (go figure) Chinese food I have ever had.  There is a small selection of "normal" food there, but there is no sense in wasting time eating that when there are such wonderful fried rices, noodles and a small selection of dim sum (chinese dumplings).  

With breakfast out of the way, we returned to the room and went back to bed in hopes that we could get a bit more rest before we traveled to the ship for work.  Well, that didn't happen.  No rest was to be had.  We met our driver at about 11:00 am. and he took us to the ship.  I was a bit worried about what it would take to get us on the ship (all ports are different, and being that we don't speak or read Chinese, I thought it may be a bit difficult).  I could not have been more wrong.  We were met by not one but two English speaking port agents.  We had to wait for about an hour before we got on the ship, but all went well (except for the constant rain). We left the ship and a different driver brought us back to the hotel.  

Being that we had not eaten since 8:30 am, we were both hungry, so we had a quick dinner in the lobby restaurant, and decided to just take it easy for the rest of the day (since it was already 5:30 in the evening).  We watched a bit of TV, and then I decided that it was time for a nap (hopefully until tomorrow morning).  WRONG!!!!!!!  A nap was all this turned out to be;  A 4 hour nap, but a nap none the less.  Jessie seemed to be tossing and turning as well, and we decided that we wanted some water, so we went to the market next door to get some refreshments and snacks (here comes the exciting part)!!!  When I went to the cooler to get the water, I saw a bottle of PBR beer peeking out at me from the bottom rack of drinks.  Clearly this is not an asian beer, so it was a bit obscurely placed, but I saw it and had to have one.  

So, our day has culminated (after a 4 hour nap) with snack time...4 bottles of water, 2 bags of lays chips, a PBR and a noodle bowl (not pictured).  On another note, take notice of the plastic bag in the foreground.  There is a barcode on it!  When the checker asked us if we wanted a bag, we naturally said yes, and so he gave us one, after scanning the barcode.  It's not that big of a deal, but I just thought it was sort of funny.  More to come after the shopping day tomorrow.  Jessie is dreaming of Bags, Bags, Bags!!!

Shanghai Day 1

Wow! What a day! Let me start off by explaining our night....

We fell asleep around 7pm and woke up around 11pm. I took some Nyquil and was able to fall back asleep until about 2:30, but then Kevin and I were both awake until about 5:30am. The sun was already coming up and we were not happy campers. We finally fell back asleep only to wake up around 8 for breakfast (we had not eaten anything since we arrived and we were starving all night). We got back to the room around 9am and fell back asleep until about 4pm. Lets just say the jetlag got the best of us!

The view of residential skyscrapers from our hotel room. This is esentially what the whole city looks like.

While we were awake in the middle of the night, we talked about how intimidated we both were about exploring the city. The language barrier is pretty tough and were were very worried about getting out and about. We thought long and hard about whether we would stay in the hotel or explore, and we decided to explore! We did our research, packed our hotel card (with the address of the hotel in Chinese so if we get lost someone will hopefully be able to get us back), and started our journey.

We decided to go to an area called Nanjing Road. This is a famous tourist spot with lots of shopping and food. We found our way to the Metro (thank goodness all the Metro signs are in English and Conji - although things still were difficult to figure out) and went 3 stops to Nanjing Road. We were the ONLY white people from our hotel to the Metro - which was about 3/4 of a mile. It was interesting the say the least!

We finally made it to Nanjing Road (during rush hour) without any problems. :) It was a very cool site. This is right in the middle of the downtown area and the buildings were huge! The lights on Nanjing Road were lit up like Times Square. We started to see more white people and heard more English (definitely not much more though!) which was very comforting. We could tell this was definitely a more populated tourist area. We also ran into many Chinese people trying to sell "watches, bags, DVD." They easily spotted that we were tourists (because we are white) and tried to sell us anything and everything "tourist." We were able to walk away from them today, but I am interested to see what they are acutally selling. Maybe I will talk to them tomorrow.

Nanjing Road

We started walking toward an area called The Bund, and stumbled across a store full of Chinese gifts. Apparantly bargaining is very common here, and we got some great deals! Kevin and I each got a t-shirt, I got some awesome Chinese shoes, and a Coach Bag (probably a knock-off for what I paid, but I don't care - and no one else will know) all for less then $75 USD. I was pretty proud of myself for barganing so well! I can't wait to see what other gifts we find.

Shopping - Day 1

We finally made it the The Bund. This is an area right across the river from many of the new high tech buildings. It was another awesome site to see. We saw the 3 buildings that are commonly associated with Shanghai. Again we had to dodge people selling things, but we were starting the get the hang of it (avoid eye contact, and don't speak - that way they don't know if you speak English).

The builings across The Bund - 3 tallest buildings from L to R: The Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Tower, and The Shanghai World Financial Center (which is currently the second tallest building in the world).

The two of us in front of Pudong. The Oriental Pearl Tower is on the left.

And another self-portrait

Say What?

After some sight seeing we went back to Nanjing Road and had a fantastic Chinese dinner. We had pork dumplings, chicken, and beef. It was delicious! As some of you may know, I am a picky eater, so the fact that I can travel the world and try new foods is pretty exciting for me!

I ate my whole dinner with chopsticks!

We finished dinner and headed back to the hotel around 9pm. We got back safely and are feeling much more at ease about exploring more of Shanghai in the next few days!

Nanjing Road at night. The lights are so beautiful!

Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World's Expo and this is the mascot. He can be seen all over the city. The motto for the Expo is "Better City, Better Life"

Arrival in Shanghai

We have officially arrived in Shanghai. The flight from Munich was about 10 1/2 hours, which really doesn't seem that long anymore! We didn't have any problems going through customs, so we gathered our bags and went to find transportation. We saw a sign that lead us to believe there may be a shuttle, but it turned out the shuttle didn't go to Shanghai (the airport is not actually in the city of Shanghai). We were going to hire a taxi, but it was suggested that we use a car service instead. Our driver did not speak much English, so communication was very difficult, but we eventually got to the hotel.

The drive to the hotel was insane! There are painted lanes, but the concept of staying in your lane does not seem to exist here. The drivers are all very safe, but it is very different than in the states! For example, honking in the states is often a form of aggression, whereas here it is more of a signal to proceed or not. It was a total culture shock!

We came over a bridge and BAM! we were in the city. All of a sudden the buildings were huge, and everything was super congested! I can't explain how gigantic ALL of the buildings are. I will try to illustrate it with pictures - to come later - but I don't think the pictures will do it justice. I have never seen so many people in one space in my life! This will be a very interesting trip, if nothing else!

By-the-way: I am happily surprised by how many signs are a combination of Conji and English. This will be a big help for us!

Sorry to cut it short now, but stay tuned. There will be much more to come!

Back in Barcelona

This visit has been very laid back for us, but I thought I would still update you on the happenings over the pond.

We arrived around 2pm on Saturday and checked into the first of two hotels. This hotel was called Hotel Colon – named for Christopher Columbus, whose Spanish name is Christobol Colon. We slept for about 3 hours and then went out walking and shopping and eating! A lot of the stores closed up around 9:00 so we went back to hotel and called it a night. We each took two Nyquil and slept through the night.

The Cathedral just outside the first hotel. There was live music and dancing on Saturday evening. 

We had to check out of the hotel at noon, so we packed our bags and started walking to the hotel we stayed at last time, called Husa Oriente. In December we made the mistake of taking a room with a balcony overlooking La Rambla and we made sure we did not make the same mistake this time.

Our big adventure on this trip was up to an area called Montjuic. This is the area where the Summer Olympic Games of ’92 took place. There were beautiful gardens everywhere, as well as art museums and of course the Olympic stadium. It was a great adventure

 Kevin in one of the gardens.

The Olympic diving pool

The view from the Olympic Pool. Not a bad view! Over looking the city, with the Sagrada Familia in the background.

The Olympic flame (holder)

The main entrance to the Olympic Stadium

The inside of the Stadium. Everything looks bigger on TV.

Overlooking the city from Montjuic.  The fountain in the middle is called Font Magica - too bad it was not turned on!

We have had a wonderful time again with great food and Sangria. We have not taken very many photos, but hopefully these give you an idea of what we have seen. I will try to take more pictures tomorrow before we leave for Shanghai! I think you will be bombarded with pictures from that trip! Thanks for taking a peak!

Change of Plans

So I know I told you all that Kevin and I were going to Hong Kong this month, but it turns out we are going to Shanghai instead. There was a small mix up with dates and we are not able to be in Hong Kong when the ship is in port, so instead we are going to Shanghai to inspect the ship a few days early. Kevin is already down in Florida, but I will be leaving on Thursday to meet up with him in New Jersey. We will be gone for a little over a week, with a stop in Barcelona on our way to Shanghai. In total, we will be spending about 48 hours in the air (we will circumnavigate the earth!), so not too much time in each city, but it will still be a great trip! Our passports are in the mail to get last minute Visa's and if all goes well, we will be on our way very shortly! Stay tuned.

This is the beautiful bouquet of tulips that I came home to on Saturday night (after working a 12 hour shift at the Broadmoor). Kevin is so wonderful! What a fabulous surprise!