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March 29, 2008 Shanghai (CHINA) Goodbye Shanghai! Embarking on a 44-Hour Ferry from China to Japan I woke up at around 7:00 a.m. this morning to make up for my procrastination - there were still a handful of things to take care of before boarding the ferry at noon today. Firstly, I needed to find souvenirs for other friends back in Tokyo as it is taboo to travel and not bring gifts back for people. I ended up catching a taxi back to the Old Shanghai district and picking up stuff there. Next, was shopping for my own goods as the dollar has been plummeting again: it was 120 Japanese yen to the dollar when I arrived in Japan, and now it is down to only 102 yen/USD. I visited a grocery store and loaded up on cheap Chinese items - toothbrushes, toothpaste, packs of ramen (for the ferry), etc - so I would not have to buy them back in Japan. Lastly, I bought a Subway sandwich and bubble tea to serve as my lunch on the boat. Neil was back in the hotel room packing up all his stuff, so after he finished we checked out of the hotel (where the hotel manager played dumb with my key deposit) and caught a taxi to the loading area.
Strangely enough, the guy in the bunk across from me,
Jaeson Kawadler, grew up in a small town outside Boston
(Massachusetts) called Sharon. The reason this is so
bizarre is because this is the very same town where my
father grew up, and where much of my family still lives.
Indeed, Jaeson went to school with two of my cousins,
Bobby and Jessie Malcolmson. Given that Sharon's
population is only 20,000 people, this was an amazing
coincidence. As for the ferry, I had no complaints. There was an on-board cafeteria, karaoke room, bar, ping-pong table, arcade, and full shower facilities (with hot water). I rented ping-pong paddles and played Neil for a while before settling in to read a book and watch the many knock-off DVDs Neil bought in China. Before going to sleep in the evening I swallowed a couple of the motion sickness pills provided - not so much because the boats minimal rocking bothered me, but rather because they have a sedative effect. |
We
cleared Chinese customs in a basement area before
boarding a bus (shown to the left) that drove us to the
ferry boarding area. There were roughly 70 other people
also taking the ferry, including a handful of
foreigners. I was assigned a bunk in the same room as
these other foreigners, and they all turned out to be
good people: two were traveling independently (an
American graduate student and an ex-investment banker
from Australia), and there was a couple who were
studying the Japanese language together in Nagoya.