I departed Raleigh at 10:15 am on Sunday morning and arrived Monday night in Shanghai. I lost a day but traveled in constant daylight. My traveling companion, Quint, and I met Kris in Tokyo and the three of us arrived together in Shanghai. Since Quint and I arrived without luggage, there was plenty of room in the taxi and the three of us shared a cab for the 45 minute ride through a cool and misty evening into what felt like a scene in a futuristic thriller: our entry in the metropolis of Shanghai.
The taxi driver dropped us at a little alley at the end of which we could see the sign for our accommodation for the coming week in Shanghai: Baolong Homelike Hotel. Having traveled on student budgets for many a trip, I am quite used to what economy can look like. And this is why we travel: to find the surprises that shatter stereotypes and expectations. Imagine my surprise and deep delight to find that Baolong Homelike Hotel is a little oasis of Asian beauty and simplicity. At the end of that alley, we turned into a small bamboo-lined walkway into the cozy space of this little haven. Tucked away between high rises, this little four story guest house with winding corridors could be the poster site for great feng shui. Spot lighting through the lobby and hallways illumine the discrete, ‘just enough’ adornments of pottery and traditional blue painted china. A rock garden transforms the corner where two hallways meet.
Perhaps it is a Chinese parenting technique for raising well-behaved children that the beds are so very firm here; no child would ever think of bouncing on one. One simply cannot work up a bounce on these mattresses. . . but one can get one blissful night of sleep. (I do profess to love a firm sleeping surface so it suits me quite well). Being horizontal after 24 hours was pure heaven and this little hotel, tucked into its little alley, is a haven of quiet. (Hmm. . . I do suspect this could change when tomorrow evening our group of 24 will all have arrived to inhabit Baolong Homelike Hotel). I will grant you that my younger traveling companions would happily trade all this tranquility for a more social setting. That is coming; our next stop will be two weeks at a university dormitory.
A delicious night’s sleep later, our group of now four: Quint, Kris and I were met last night by Andrew, converged over the breakfast buffet that comes with a night’s lodging at Baolong. And no, it’s not my usual yogurt and fruit breakfast here. . .
It is now Tuesday late morning and I have found my way around the block from Baolong Homelike Hotel to Park Center, a mega plaza of upscale western shops, to a Starbucks (yes, of course they are here) because the word was that here I could get internet access. I do have a pretty good cup of coffee sitting here (and it is appreciated in my jet lagged state) but alas, the rumor of access here was a false lead. Thanks to my nifty ‘netbook’ I am writing anyway and will eventually find a way to post these entries. Internet cafes seem not to exist in our part of town. Keeping in touch may be more of a challenge than I had expected. . .
Tuesday evening 10:00 pm
Early afternoon was reunion time today as our little traveling teams arrived (some who set out a week ago and have been adventuring their way to this location). The final four should be here within the hour. With the majority of us here, we set out for the Shanghai Museum for the afternoon and then took advantage of perfect (!) weather to loll about in People’s Park and then find our way to “Yang’ sfry dumpling” (that is exactly how it is written on the sign). Featured recently in the New York Times’ “36 hours in Shanghai,” Yang’s is dumpling heaven. Testimony to this is the line of locals who line the street to place their order at one window and then move to the next to pick up take-away boxes of four gracious-sized Chinese dumplings (which you can also observe being made as you wait for your order.) Way off the beaten path for most tourists, our group of obvious not-locals sitting on the street consuming boxes of dumplings provided amusement of our fellow native dumpling eaters.
2:00 am Wednesday morning
It’s time to get some sleep. . . but our last group member has yet to appear at the hotel; it is 2:00 am and he should have arrived at least three hours ago. The fellow traveler he was to meet at the airport was told his plane had landed but he didn’t arrive at their meeting place to share a cab to the hotel and no call came from him until an hour ago. So where has Jason been for the last three hours?? In quarantine on his airplane. That’s right. The Chinese are taking great precaution against H1N1 and all flights landing in China are currently being boarded by teams in (as one of our group says) ‘spaceman suits’ to read the temperatures of all passengers, which they do by having you close your eyes while shooting a beam at your forehead . (I’m sure there’s a better medical explanation out there for this procedure but I lack the lingo and was amused anyway with feeling that I was in one of the memory erasing scenes from ‘Men in Black’ (a movie worth renting for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Jason’s cab should arrive any minute. I’ll hear his saga and get him checked in. His arrival makes us complete. We are now all in China: twenty-four NC State Caldwell and China Fellows and five weeks of adventure ahead.
Lauren, Katrina and Ariel rest outside of the Shanghai History Museum
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