China: First Impressions

 Even the river was busy as our boat entered the crowded Yangtze that would lead us to the heart of Shanghai. The water was filled with fishing boats, navy vessels, ferries, tugs, coast guards, and barges that housed families who strung their laundry on lines that went over top heaps of garbage -- and all of them loosely followed lanes and that cut in and out from each other in the slow, drifting manner of water travel. We waved to the passing boats, where small children sat from their wooden chairs, eyeing us through binoculars. Even with our escort flashing blue and red lights 30 metres ahead of us, our captain laid on the foghorn against the oncoming boats that seemed always eager to play a game of chicken.     We drifted up the river for an hour -- between the refineries and loading docks with blue and red shipping containers that were stacked a dozen high. There were shipyards with cranes that lifted entire ships out of the water. Every inch of the river's shoreline was crowded with industrial or trade complexes that kept busy in supporting the world's second largest economy.

    The last leg of our tour took us to the heart of Shanghai's downtown. The iconic skyline approached us with it's various shapes and colours. The buildings glistened in silver, hues of blue and gold, and had massive names like Aurora splayed across them. There were structures that appeared to have been cleaved into two halves, another that turned into itself, another that resembled a bottle cap opener, and the needle-like TV tower at the point. As we pulled into an area not far from the Bundt, the clouds opened up slightly and we all did group shots in the diffused sunlight. Then with our cameras hanging off of our wrists, we quickly exchanged emails with people that we would probably never see again.
    The city itself seemed less crazy than the river at first. People somewhat obeyed traffic laws and waited at lights and such, but there were bike lanes that appeared and disappeared along the side of the road, and blended with the sidewalks that we walked on. We kept on our toes as bicycles, rickshaws, scooters and motorbikes, all dipped in and out of pedestrian areas.
    The boat that we arrived in seemed to have set the appropriate tone with its foghorn, as Chinese people were definitely not afraid to use their horns. There were people everywhere with no shirts, or at least with the bottoms of their shirts hiked up to their chests -- as seems to be the fashion for many Chinese men. There were also vehicles that were often loaded beyond their capacity as scooters carried entire families, or possibly  the merchandise of a small business, precariously tied together with twine. The smell was one of the more immediate impressions. There was always a metallic tinge to the air, interspersed with random pockets of rancidity.
    Overall though, the city streets were clean. The buildings may have looked run down or aged, maybe showing signs of water damage amongst large junctions of electrical hardwire, but there was generally no litter anywhere on the streets.

    It wasn't far to the Bundt area, which was made up of Art Deco buildings dedicated to banks and finance. The shore alongside the river was well groomed with a walkway, flower beds, streetlamps, river tours, and ferry boats that docked all along the shore. In the evening, when people left the World Exhibition grounds, many of them seemed to flock to the Bundt where they could get there photos taken with the city skyline, amongst the buskers and vendors selling bottles of water for 30 cents each -- or cold bottles for twice the price. On top of a small brick building near the water, was a cafe/bar with a saxophone player housed on the roof, playing jazz music to the crowds.
    Our hostel ended up being just a block behind the Wall Street-like buildings along the water and between the dingy buildings a few blocks behind. The hostel was called "the Captain's Hostel," and it had a seafaring theme, complete with blue waves imprinted into the carpets, roped guardrails in the hallways, lifesavers hung on walls, and portraits of mythical sea captains. The washroom came with toilet paper -- although only one roll at a time, and whenever we took a shower, the whole bathroom flooded.
    As it turned out, when Janice went to pay for the room with her credit card, the girl at the desk wasn't able to work the chip function in her card. We tried it a few times, trying to get her to give us the pad so that we could put in the code, but when she finally gave it to us, it still wouldn't work. The card didn't end up working for the rest of the trip and my card expired a few days later. It wasn't until we returned to Vancouver that we learned the girl at our hostel caused our card to deactivate after her third failed attempt at running the card without a PIN.
    In the area behind our hostel was where there were small restaurants with faded menus in the windows and families sitting at wooden tables. There was no English in these places, so we were always limited to the picture specials displayed behind the cash register. When the waitress would come to take our orders, we would have to lead them to the front of the restaurant and point at whatever image looked like it wouldn't have any mushrooms (mushrooms are no-good in my books). These pictures were often deceiving however, and we often ended up with one mushroom dish or another.
    One of our best meals in China however, came at our first lunch in Shanghai. Around the corner behind our hostel, there were a couple of noodle shops: one that was empty, and another that was full of Chinese people. The one that was full of customers had part of its kitchen located outside the front of the restaurant, where the cooks boiled soup and fixed dinners for the people inside. On the other side of the burners, we could see another chef who pulled wads of dough and then cut them into the noodles that were put into the soup. As we walked by, one of the servers stepped out of the door, dressed in his apron and a handkerchief tied over his head: "You come eat!" he said.

    There had to be a reason why this place was busier than the one beside it. We walked in and were quickly seated at a table with a few older men who sat across from us, slurping noodles out of boiling hot broth in the humidity of the 30 degree afternoon. I assumed that they knew what they were doing, so I pointed at their bowls when the waitress came to take our orders; Janice pointed to a picture of a sauteed beef and onion dish that was on the wall in front of us. As we ate, a family stood over us, waiting for a table. While their two children open-mouth-stared at Janice eat her lunch, we asked ourselves what could make the food taste so good. We figured it was either because of how hungry we were, or based on the headaches that we developed afterward, it could also have been the copious amounts of MSG.