Shanghai

Friday 19th Feb 5.40 am

We left Shanghai last night with a feeling of satisfaction for ourselves but sadness for Liz. Suffice to say that Shanghai has changed radically over the last 15 years, let alone 70. Where there were only a few high rise buildings 15 years ago and the city probably looked much as it had for a hundred years, there was a sudden spurt in building with the loosening of rigid Chinese policies and its attitude to the outside world. Also Shangai went into fierce competition with Hong Kong after its handover from the British and is now a city of imaginative and colourful skyscrapers. At night, imitating its sister city the waterfront is suffused in coloured searchlights and each building has is own strings of lights and light displays...it is a wonderful sight from where we were berthed, facing the Bund on one side and Pudon on the other.

You can imagine Liz's excitement and her emotions as we sailed in on Monday morning and she saw the skyline of Shanghai for the first time in about 70 years. She dreadfully missed her sister Marion's presence, but also, and this I totally identified with, she wondered where her parents were, why weren't they with her? (When Doris and I discovered my old home in Zanzibar, looking surprisingly the same, I felt that my parents and my ayah were surely close by, they always had been! )

So we set off (Four go Adventuring Again... a la Enid Blyton!) that first morning on an SAS tour of the Bund. The Chinese authorities took the longest time to clear the ship so all the tours were late starting. As a result, in very cold temperatures, our guide rushed us along the Bund, although that was the whole purpose of the tour: The buildings and colonial Architecture of the Bund. The word originally means, in Hindi, an embankment and the bund was originally put up to drain marshes and prevent the inland rush of the sea. Neo Renaissance, Neo Classism and Art Decco in style, the buildings stand facing the harbour. A strong statement still about the history of the city. Liz's father was editor of the Shanghai Times for some years and the Guide pointed out that building to Liz. Her face lit up with her wonderful smile as she posed for photos in front of the entrance.

However we were all too soon rushed back on to the bus and taken to a smallish square surrounded by very beautiful Chinese style buildings with multiple stores on their ground level floors. (Kick-back time for the guide?) It was Chinese New Year so perhaps you can imagine what such a small square would be like when it seemed that half of China had decided to visit the bright lights of Shanghai! Our guide, with a group of about twenty of us attempting to follow, barged his way into the centre of the very dense crowd and said 'I will leave you here for half an hour, meet me outside Starbucks!' Yes, even here, in the middle of this very Chinese place there was a Starbucks! We had to go our separate ways, no choice, and made our way to the nearest large store to find breathing space. Some students found cooked, steaming soup dumplings to warm themselves and there was a lovely savoury smell coming from those. George and I browsed our way round the square. Children were lifted high on their parents shoulders to keep them from being trampled and the noise was deafening. We had been warned that the Chinese shove to get where they want to go (they have to) and this was certainly true....I learned very quickly to shove back hard to make my way anywhere.

Eventually our half hour was up and we elbowed our way back to the bus. We asked to be dropped on the Bund and walked along it slowly again. By this time the four of us were starving and we didn't want to go back to the ship. We went into a very posh looking building in the hopes of finding non-squat loos! (This was right opposite the equally posh bar where our friend Randy Eastman had taken us on our last visit a year ago.) We were directed to a restaurant which looked overwhelmingly expensive but had the desired western toilets. We were cold and hungry so decided to stay. We had no Chinese money between us, the result of being rushed off the ship so we established first that they would accept credit cards, "Of course no problem".

We sat in lonely splendour in this highly polished marble and gold decorated dining room. Four of us at a very large table which would probably have seated ten. We ordered sweet and sour soup and two appetisers of braised pork ribs and smoked jellied chicken which we shared. Audrey had to send back her glass of beer because it was really grubby with a mouth mark on the rim! Liz and I shared a pot of fragrant tea which was good and George also had a couple of beers. I'm telling you all this in detail because the final bill was fifty dollars US each! We had failed as travellers on our first day basically (good word here) because we desperately needed toilets....and it was Chinese new Year when the Bund was mostly shut down!

The story doesn't end there. When presented with the bill George gave them his Mastercard. Embarrassingly it came back 'refused'. So Liz gave them hers....'refused' again. We offered US dollars "Sorry! No US dollars" What then? Should we offer to wash up? One of the attendants offered to take George to an ATM machine "close by" where he would be able to get Chinese money, so off they went....not to be seen again for about 40 minutes! Interestingly the staff were as embarrassed as we were because they knew their machine wasn't working properly and they had told us they would accept credit cards. They offered us free fruit....please! We declined, hoping every minute that George would reappear. He finally did with a huge grin on his face (they had walked quite a distance to find an open ATM because all the Banks were closed) and we paid the bill. After another visit to the loo....we thought we might as well make the best use of it, warm and clean as it was and after all it had cost us $50.00 each!

We walked along to the end of the Bund before Liz, Audrey and I took a cab back to the ship. As if he hadn't exercised enough George chose to walk. We arrived at the dock gate at the same moment because we had had to drive miles in the opposite direction to avoid making the necessary U turn. Needless to say George was gleeful at the thought that he might even have beaten us back on board.

The cold kept us in for the rest of the day, cosily knocking back wine, Scotch, beer and G&T's in the bar...no we didn't all drink all of it!

I'm going to post this and more later because I have been off line for so long. This is especially for Sally and Pamela who read it at the same time each day.