Chongquing to Pudong

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Geo: 29.5591, 106.518

Today was another great day... well, until about 10pm but we'll get to that later. This morning I was awake SUPER EARLY so I took a shower and got our bags packed to leave the cruise while Kamie snored. He still has a fairly bad cold but he's trooping along.

We finally arrived in the massive city of Chongquing around 3am but the sites just getting there were amazing. Chongquing is one of the largest cities in China and in the world. The entire city consists of skycraper apartment buildings and manufacturing plants. It is good to do business along the river because then you can easily ship the items away. Most Suzuki parts are made here. Chongquing is famous for several political and other reasons but the Chinese people call it the "HOT" city - because it is 105 degrees in the summer, because the people really like hot-hot food here (Chongquing is in the Sichuan province of China, aptly named), and because all the girls here are the hottest in Chinese. Our tour guide told us the saying in China is... you will go to Beijing and regret you are such low political standing (because of all the high-ranking government officials there).... you will go to Shanghai and regret how poor you are (because of all the expats living Shanghai, it is very expensive to live/eat in Shanghai)... and you will go to Chongquing and regret you already got married. Ha

Two quick things about Chongquing: the Nationalism party (which was supported by the US and lost) started here as a grass roots organization and was very strong in this city for several years. This is a long interesting story I will not share today. Secondly, there was a major earthquake here on May 12, 2008. The Chinese government immediately rated the earthquake a 7.8 because the worldwide "rule" is that if there is an earthquake of 8.0 or over, all relief and aid workers can enter any country without permission. Five days and 200,000 deaths later, with the soldiers the Chinese government sent as relief workers overwhelmed and even unable to get roads open, the government changed the earthquake rating to 8.0. This is a reminder that China is a Communism country. We may never know the true rating of the earthquake or the number of people that actually died. Terrible.

So, we left the boat this morning. Before leaving everyone discussed whether or not they got a massage while onboard. Kamie said he heard a tale that if he gets a massage at the end she is not allowed to ask if he wants a "happy ending" but she will ask him "You want me make banana cry?" Puh-leease Mr. Langston. I rolled my eyes and told him to go for it. Needless to say, Kamie did not get his massage.

We had three surprises/extras today that were not on our itinerary. Our flight from Chongquing to Pudong (Shanghai) wasn't until 1pm so our guide talked to our driver in Chongquing and he took us to a local village's popular shopping mart. It was SO MUCH FUN!! It looked like a small village in Germany but with red hanging lanterns. The locals do not see westerners very often so they were very engaging and friendlly to us. They asked to take our picture, they took our pictures, and sold us all sorts of dirt cheap goods - because the prices were already listed for the local people. I got 5 makeup bags for 10 Yuan which is about $1.64 US dollars and a beautiful tea service set - one like Newman had previously purchased for 165 Yuan, I paid 50 Yuan after much bargaining The bargaining was good today. It was fun-fun-fun. We toured the village with our tour guide with him stopping while we all tasted their version of beef jerky, we ate some local candy, we had some hot spices, and we ate this street food that looked like small red candy apples but it was a sour fruit that had been carmalized with red sugar on the outside -- sooooo good! We were then all given about an hour to shop. I did well. Kamie and the rest of the men stepped to the side and smoked.

After our shopping trip in Chongquing we drove to the airport, went through security, and had about an hour to eat something. We saw someone with Subway. We got upstairs and found the Subway and there was some of our group. I had a hot ham and cheese (they heat all sandwiches without asking) with lettuce, tomato, and black olives with mayo. It was superliciously fantastical! Kamie ordered some sort of steak and cheese with extra cheese and when he started eating he realized they had given his sandwich to a Chinese girl and he was eating teriyaki chicken with ketchup. He couldn't eat it and didn't want to stand in line again so he had no lunch. He was disappointed. Subway was odd anyway - they were out of chips and they offered soda but ONLY Coke and they took the glass to the back and brought back out to you, filled with their mystery Coke. We both had a little bit of the mystery Coke. I've never seen a country live on Coke before - no Diet Coke, very little Sprite, no Dr Pepper or anything like that - ALWAYS COKE.

After eating we went downstairs and just like our last intra-china flight - with no announcement whatsoever, they started boarding about 15 minutes early. We see the Chinese flying through first because they have soooo many carry-ons with them - they want the overhead space. Our guide says: "It can't be our flight" but then he goes and talks to them and says "Everyone onboard!" LOL Two girls were still upstairs eating and our guide had to go look for them and finally everyone arrived. Our guide boards every flight last and can never leave a tour group member in a city alone. The tour group will not allow this. Our tour guide is very good at his job but corralling 28 people must be a tough job.

I didn't have my camera on the plane. I regret that. I was tired and wanted to sleep but even for the 2 hour and 20 min or 2 hour and 40 min flights, they always serve a full meal on Air China. We did not take the last meal but heard rumblings of the questionable food. Today, I was full but Kamie was hungry so I took my meal thinking he might want his and mine. It was "beef rice" meal - some steamed rice, some grainy/cat-looking brown meat with noodles & carrots, a roll, 3 large cherry tomatoes, a small dish of noodles & carrots (maybe pasta or souplike?), a packet of wasabi peanuts (yucko), and a small, cold pickled veggie packet. I ate nothing. I was full from all the Chongquing snacking and Subway. Kamie ate his rice and part of his beef. He even tried the pasta/soup stuff. He did not like it but he was hungry and we always eat dinner late on this tour.

After our arrival in the Pudong International Airport i.e. Shanghai... we were all taken to our bus by the tour guide where we put all of our belongings and then we walked back in the airport and took the escalator back to the Maglev - the high speed train between Pudong and downtown Shanghai! For 50 Yuan each, we all took this train to meet our bus driver in Shanghai. This was a little treat arranged by our tour guide (surprise number two for the day). Our train went 301 kilometers per hour or about 180 miles per hour. It was pretty cool because it actually seems to twist on its side when getting into the city. It's more like an amusement park ride.

We were taken to our gorgeous hotel in Shanghai and Kamie & I were given a Premium Room on the 13th floor - just one level below the Executive Suites. We have a nice view of the Pudong River out one of our windows. The hotel is tall, huge, and beautiful. Very nice. After check-in most of us met at 7pm with our tour guide and his final surprise today was to give us a walk to the famous Nanjing Shopping Street in Shanghai. Our hotel is about a ten minute walk to all the restaurants, attractions, and bright lights of this shopping street and another ten minutes to The Bund area. We saw the Pearl Tower, the outdoor (and indoor) shopping malls, etc. This place is alot like what I imagine New York City looks like. Tonight we were guided through the area for about 45 minutes then we were left on our own to return to the hotel when we pleased. We saw lots and lots of westerners - blondies, round eyes, people who were NOT Chinese - everywhere. Our tour guide told us "this is NOT the real Chinese." It is very clear the only people that could possibly shop in The Gap or eat at the Burger King or McDonalds or shop at the iPhone store would be expats. This place is clearly built and used by tourists only. Some American Chinese people were there - taking pictures - tourists. Makes sense. An interesting note about the giant Apple store here - an Iphone in China will cost you over $1,000. The Apple store in The Nanjing Shopping area receives over 7,000 people in their doors per day - to look and play with the gadgets - the younger generation is fascinated with technology. Most Chinese, however, cannot afford an iPhone.

Kamie and I were sick of Chinese food. We saw McDonalds and had no shame. Kamie ordered a Big Mac. (He said it tasted just like a normal Big Mac - no surprises). I ordered a Chicken sandwich. We both got fries - and COKES (nothing else available) came with our meals. We got our food to go and sat out on the bench eating the fries like we were starving but besides being a tad bit soggy - they were just like fries you can eat in America. We devoured them. We then slowly walked in and out of a couple of stores, bought some water, took some pictures, and walked back to our hotel around 9:30pm. It was a long, good day and my feet were tired. We were both exhausted. I opened my sandwich and it was a McSpicy which I didn't order - and it was soooo hot my tongue was on fire. I ate about half of it but just couldn't get the fire out of my mouth. I brushed my teeth and it didn't help. My fourth "surprise" for today was spending most of the night in and out of the bathroom. Maybe it was the street food, maybe the weird Coke at Subway in the airport, maybe the McFireSpicy - flames were shooting out of me last night. Aren't glad you I share EVERYTHING on this blog??

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