Blog 10: The slow boat to China

We boarded the 17-hour international ferry from South Korea to China at the port city of Incheon, about an hour by subway from the center of Seoul.
Arriving at the international ferry terminal, we first noticed that there was not a single other “gaijin” in the terminal – we were the only westerners taking the boat to China. The second thing of note was that 90% of the other travelers were dressed in identical red vests and hats – the ferry was filled with hundreds of group tour visitors from China heading back home.

When we bought our tickets, all the cheap spots were full, so for an extra $20 we booked a twin room, instead of the usual 6 or 8 (or 30!) beds to a room. Turns out that that upgraded us to “royal” class – we had a stately private room with mini-fridge, tv, and our own bathroom with both a shower and tub (we hadn't had access to a bathtub since leaving home!).
The ferry itself was impressive – Colin's first reaction upon boarding was that he felt like he was on board the Titanic (in a good way, though I didn't quite appreciate the comparison).
It was smooth sailing all the way to China...





Arriving at the port in Qingdao, things were a little different. We were immediately assaulted by yellowish, stinky smog that made Colin's eyes sting and our stomachs a bit nauseous. We looked for the currency exchange to change our remaining Korean money to Chinese Yuan, but there was none – in an international terminal – hmmm. We fared no better at the bank down the street – we were told that only the Bank of China could change Korean currency. I did have some Yuan that I had bought in the U.S. before leaving, so we took a taxi to our hostel and figured we'd work out the currency exchange later. In our efforts to change money at the bank, though, we hadn't let on that we had any Yuan, so thinking us destitute, the bank manager insisted on giving us bus fare to get to the nearest Bank of China. I didn't have the heart, or the language skills, to correct her, so off we went with an additional 2 yuan (about .30 cents) in our pocket...

The taxi deposited us at the base of the park where we had been told our hostel was located. I was able to see a sign pointing us to the hostel, so we unloaded our bags from the trunk, sent the taxi away, and started up the stone steps ascending the hill. As soon as we started climbing, people started blocking our path and pointing us back down. They clearly wanted us to go another way, but we only had the posted signs to guide us to where we needed to go, and we were going to follow them, damn it, no matter what! As we got higher, the steps soon ended in a pile of rubble, and a half dozen workers were busily smashing up the concrete stairs and connecting patios, but on we went, climbing over the rubble with our heavy bags, sweating profusely, and alternately cursing and laughing as we plodded up the hill. Once past the construction, we continued to climb the stairs, and climb, and climb... following the occasional signs to the hostel as we went.
We finally came to the top, and were greeting by a wonderful old Observatory housing the youth hostel. We checked in, dragged our bags up two more flights of stairs, and made for the roof, where we had a view over all of
Qingdao, complete with a cafe and bar, a rooftop pool table, and the old observatory dome itself, decked out with cushions and curtains and the resident cuddly kitten.
Score!










A few days in Qingdao brought both rain and snow, which we were decidedly NOT prepared for. So after walking around a bit, finding the street markets, and watching in awe as the locals played beach volleyball practically in the buff and went swimming in the ocean, despite the freezing temperatures, we decided it was time to move south to Shanghai.

Easier said than done.

The receptionist at our hostel suggested taking the overnight bus to Shanghai instead of the train - “cheaper and faster,” she said. I suppose I cant argue with the truth of her statement, but the bus had a confusion factor that wasn't described as part of the bargain.

When we departed for the “bus station” in the cab she called for us, she neglected to include a few details – such as how we would be deposited by the side of a busy road with no obvious bus terminal in sight, and no where to walk without delving by foot into thick truck traffic because there were also no sidewalks in sight;
...or how we would have to stand there and wait until a man approached us flapping a paper with the receptionists' cell phone number on it (this part we only discovered upon begging our cab driver to call the receptionist to ask what the heck we were supposed to do once let out on the side of this busy, sidewalk-less road);
...or how we would have to stand in a 20x20 concrete block with a dozen chain-smoking men for nearly an hour while waiting for our bus to arrive (after diving into the aforementioned truck traffic on the heels of the paper-waving man and skirting a narrow opening between the trucks and a tall barrier wall to find the “station”);
...or how the bus that arrived to take us would have no reclining seats and no bathroom (both of which she assured me the overnight bus would have), leading us to frantically decide whether we should proceed or get the hell off now – after deciding we would use an empty water bottle for a toilet, we reluctantly decided to proceed;
...or how 30 minutes later, we would once again be ushered off the formidably inadequate bus onto a new bus waiting for us in the dark on the side of the highway – this one with a bathroom (yay!) and full of metal bunk beds, three across and end-to-end the length of the bus (double yay!!).

While in the end, all was well, those little details would have been good to know.

We promptly claimed the only two connecting bunks, at the very back of the bus, hung a blanket across the end as a makeshift screen, and settled in for the night. Not luxury, but quite comfy compared to what we thought we had gotten ourselves in for! About 8 hours later, we were suddenly awakened by the bus slowing down and the lights coming up as we pulled into the station in Shanghai, just before 5 a.m. It was pitch black, and my plan to duck into a nearby cafe (non existent), grab a coffee (ditto) and get oriented was abandoned in favor of grabbing a waiting cab, handing over a piece of paper with the address of our hostel, and hoping it wasn't too far or too expensive. Fortunately, it was neither. 10 minutes later, we were leaving our bags with the hostel's night watchman and heading out to find coffee and food. Shanghai was still deep asleep, but our hostel was immediately behind the Marriott, and McDonald's (24/7) was conveniently immediately across the street from the front of said Marriott. Micky-D's never looked so good! Two Egg McMuffins and two hours later, the reception desk at our hostel opened, and we checked in for the start of a week in Shanghai!