Part One: Back to China, back to Shanghai!

First day – Shanghai!
Ah Shanghai, back again after a short 13 hour flight. I was initially going to get in at 4:30 pm which put me at my place around 6 – perfect to get going to see the city and more importantly- to eat! Then I was going to go to the Bund and maybe Najing Road. But was it going to go according to plan..(queue foreboding music).

The flight was delayed getting in, and there is a new system in place where foreigners need to get fingerprinted and have a face scan before being allowed in. With some technical glitches slowing the system down it took a while to get through. Plus my SIM card that I used on my last trip didn’t work and I couldn’t add to it like I did before so I had to buy another SIM card and plan, but there is a new identification and tracking process for foreigners to get SIM cards – which was why my other card stopped working. This was also time consuming. But I rely on my phone heavily for navigation so I had to take the time to get this sorted out.

By the time I got to my place it was 9 pm and most restaurants were closed. I did see a place with a lot of good reviews just over a km away that apple maps said was open until 2 am. So I set out to get there.

It looks like it was raining earlier but it is a nice night for a walk. I find my way there… and they are closed. The sign says they close at 9. There is nothing else close by, and so I walk back to a main road. I see a 24 hr hotpot place and since my options are now limited I went there. This may be the worlds largest city, but at least in the area pretty much everything closed at 10 pm.

Ordering is all through a tablet

It was really a neat experience, you use a tablet to pick everything then it’s all submitted and starts coming out quickly. Maybe because I’m famished but the food is really good. I ask for a Tsingtao but they don’t have that. Weird, this was the most common beer by far last time I was in China. But they have a beer called Haidilao so I try it.

Hotpot in Shaghai

They have a noodle on their “must order” list and I got it. I didn’t realize they come out with it and put on a show stretching the noodles out. That was super fun to see and made my night. I/m in China so I can now use my WeChat pay again, which is super convenient. But when I go to pay my WeChat account funds are frozen. This is going to be a problem a I have most of my travel money here. But I pay with cash and definitely will have to try to figure this out!

I walk back to my place, it’s around Midnight but it’s nice to see the city again. I see some places that have funny English translations.

Can anyone tell me what this place actually is for?

Getting to my place is through a series of dark alleyways was like something out of a creepy movie. But despite the suspenseful music playing (at least in my head) it was uneventful. The building I am staying in is historic and protected from being torn down and rebuilt, and it’s a very unique place to stay – and with a bit of a dungeon vibe going on. But it’s clean and cool – and has a really nice shower with lots of hot water which was exactly what Travelling Steveo needed.

Up early at 5 am today. I didn’t get a chance to see much of Shanghai last night and I have my flight now at noon (the one that was canceled was in originally the late evening giving me another day in Shanghai). So I go out and walk through a large set of parks and enjoy the morning. It’s lightly raining but warm and not many people are out yet.

Nice morning, a little rain but warm.,

I have some Sheng Jian Bao at two places along with some Lao Suannai (Old Yogurt) – highlights from my last time in Shanghai. I could eat this everyday and don’t understand why food this good isn’t available elsewhere. Or everywhere. It was neat going back to the same restaurant and eating here again. Although I didn’t have a lot of time to spare so I had to rush a little with the food and get going to the airport. I didn’t know how busy it will be there and after the delays last night I don’t want to risk missing my flight.

Sheng Jian Bao – amazing stuff

Off to the airport, I take a direct bus nearby as it’s half the time of the subway. It’s a good thing that I got to the airport early because my ID was wrong on my ticket. It looks like when they rebooked my flight the person mistyped my passport number. They tell me they can’t change this and I have to contact the booking company- which is one of the online booking companies. The problem is that I can’t make phone calls on my plan. From online I can only see My booking ID. I get my phone some calling minutes but then the number comes up as unavailable in my calling area. Now my time is ticking to my flight and I’m feeling pretty stuck. It’s a very lonely feeling when you have no communication path for help and are out of ideas. And it’s the middle of the night back home so I can’t get someone to just conference me through.

I decide to go back to the ticket purchase counter and talk to another person. They tell me the same thing but this time I ask who could make the change in the airline. The lady thinks for a moment then tells me the Airline Manager may be able to and tells me how to get to them. I go there and talk to the Manager and tell him my problem and in one minute he typed something in and I’m good. I’m really happy this was fixed but it would have been really nice to know this an hour and a half ago when I was frantically trying to figure out how to fix this.

I now am back in line to get my boarding pass, but now the lineup is pretty long with only 2 agents at the counter. It’s a distinct possibility I won’t get my pass before the cutoff and here if you are one minute late the system freezes you out. I decide to be patient and just let it be – really if I miss my flight I’ll just book the next one for tonight. This would mean I’ll have booked a flight to Guilin three times now. The irony is not lost on me.

But everything works out and once she opens my ticket in her system it holds the lockout time. By the time on my phone I had a whole 3 minutes to spare when I got to the counter. Cutting it close enough.

Of course my gate is really far away at the end of one terminal wing. For some reason every flight I get is at a terminal really far away from the security checkpoints. I get through security, rush to the gate and board with minutes to spare. Phew! I take a deep breath in my seat.

So here I go, with the flight to Guilin about to take off and I am going to relax for my flight. I was going to play with my WeChat problem while waiting for this flight, but this will have to wait for the next part of my adventure.

Accommodation: 6

Food: 7

City: 8 I still love you Shanghai, it wasn’t your fault that fate ripped us so cruelly apart.

Experience: 3. After so many delays I never really got re-aquatinted with the city that loves me so.