Day-32: Shanghai

Day-32: Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Beginning Location: Shanghai, China

Final Location: East China Sea, En-route to Seoul, South Korea

We were awake by 0600 this morning as the tours began around 0730 to accommodate the ship's afternoon departure from Shanghai. As usual we had the fruit and pastry breakfast.

Today's weather turned out to be much better than yesterday, the sun would actually make an appearance warming temperatures into the low 50's.

We departed the ship, headed to our bus and found, to our pleasure that for the second day, Jenny was our guide. Our tour "Best of Shanghai" would take us throughout the city's major business districts for close-up views of the super-tall buildings. 

We visited the Jade Buddha Temple; every town must have one and then moved on to the Shanghai Museum a four-story structure with a diverse and well laid-out display of Chinese art from bronze to porcelain to coins and currency, calligraphy, furniture, jade, seals and even traditional costumes. 

Lunch followed at a Shanghai Hotel. The meal was served in a "Lazy-Susan" style with a variety of meats, veggies, noodles and some things unknown; everyone seemed to like the lunch.  

Our final tour of the day took us to the Yu Yuan Gardens and lastly to an “Old Town” market place. There wasn’t anything old about the market other than us, the tourists from Nautica. The place was teeming with the youth of China. I did stop in at the local McDonald’s, just for a photo, and later consumed a cup of ice cream at the local Haagen-Dazs.

Squid on a stick, yum!

We were back on the ship around 1630, too late for trivia but well in time for the 1700 departure from Shanghai.

Shanghai Skyline

We had dinner with some of our Canadian “mates” and then proceeded to the Martini Bar for Name That Tune. As for Name That Tune, it wasn’t about 5 notes, or 3 notes but a series of 16 questions about songs, composers, shows, movies and locations. So the pianist plays the song and the contesting teams try to name the:

• Song Title and Composer
• Song Title and Movie
• Song Title and Location Mentioned in the Song
• Song Title and Broadway Show

Sheila hung in there but I bailed after the first five notes of the first song allowing someone more versed in the arts to take my place. In the end, Sheila’s team had placed third, an excellent showing based on the songs used in the game.

It was then time for the evening’s show so we ambled into the Nautica Lounge for the performance of “Suzie G” (no apparent relation to Kenny of the same last name). Suzie, an Australian, plays an electric fiddle: that would be an electric violin for those not recognizing the fiddle as a real instrument. The performance was a blend of classical, American country and popular songs generally recognized by the audience.

Sheila headed for the barn halfway through the show and after staying for the end I moved on to the Martini Bar and closed it down with some of our new-found UK friends, Suzie G and the previous night’s performer Duck Cameron, a magician and comedian.