Shanghai Day 1

We left the hostel at around 8:15 and headed to the subway station a few blocks away.  Needing coins for the ticket machine we got breakfast at the Donut King across the street.  There were tai chi groups everywhere doing there slow controlled movements in the cold winding morning air.  It was rush hour on the subway but we managed to shove ourselves on the second subway with everyone else.  Once we made it through the subway system we walked for 15 minutes or so before we saw the ship.  When we first saw it, it looked really funny; almost like it wasn’t in water but surrounded by skyscrapers.  At the port was a long line of students waiting to get on the ship.  We got there around 9:30, plenty of time to get on and off the ship right?  Wrong, so instead I will not get on the ship but just get on the bus that my trip is leaving parked right there in my sight right?  Wrong again.  I got all the way on the bus and was ready and excited to go on my trip when a customs officer comes on and asks to see everyone’s passports.  I don’t have the stamp that you have to get when you get on the ship so they make me get off the bus.  I get to skip the line and run inside and turn in my passport to have it stamped; it will be ready in an hour or so.  Welcome to communist China!  Two other girls have the same problem that I do so it is set up for us to meet the group at lunch.  An hour later I go back and my passport is still not ready.  So I sit with a book in a chair right there and wait.  Finally after a lot of help from the tour agent and the field office we get our passport back and get to lunch.  After a fabulous lunch we went to the Shanghai museum.  I wish we had more than an hour because it was a really nice museum that I would highly recommend to any future visitors to China and it was free.  It had 4 floors and about 8 different exhibits.  Out of those I walked through the furniture, the costume, the ceramics, and a quick glance at the brass exhibit.  After the museum we went to the Jade Buddha Temple where we saw two jade Buddha’s and tried Buddhist tea.  Because of a fire we couldn’t eat at the restaurant that had been picked out originally but our tour guild was really good and managed to find a place for 25 people to eat.  After dinner we went to see an Acrobat show.  It was a long day; once back on the ship I went to bed.