We spent last night on the ship. Our room is nice, yada, yada, yada. Enough about the ship and where we are. Let's get down to business.
We had an adventurous day yesterday. We rode the subway and you haven't lived until you have ridden the subway in Shanghai at rush hour no doubt. Holy guacamole. There was a gazillion people moving in a wave that would crush Southern boys if they had a chance. Geez I might have Post Traumatic Subway Syndrome or something along those lines. Somebody hug me. I know I will wake up years from now screaming in my sleep. Not from the subway but from BO and the democrats. Now, we both know I blindsided you with that democrat joke. Anyway, we figured out how the subway system worked and rode the thing all over the city. Deb and I have ridden subways in several parts of the world, so this one wasn't too tough to figure out. Yeah right. The locals gawked at me like I was the only 6'2", white, Southern boy they have ever seen. I might as well have been from Jupiter. Beep, beep. We come in peace. Take me to your leaders. Yeah right. Deb got some looks too. We were at the convention center or whatever the name of the place was, good Lord I ain't even going to attempt to spell the name of the place if I could. Whatever, the place was the convention center, now I've lost my train of thought. I remember now, Deb and I were walking around the convention center when a local came up and wanted to photograph himself with Deb, then his buddy did too. It seems blonds are a novelty here and I got a huge laugh out of the whole deal. What you might not know is Deb is a bleach blond and they thought she was a true blond. You might say she is an American blond knockoff. Now that is too funny.
We rode the Maglev train too. Great Ceasar's ghost that thing hauls butt. The Maglev is a train that runs from Shanghai Pudong Airport to downtown. It takes about 10 minutes, costs $7 each way, and goes 300 KPH. For the American readers (the Canadian readers already know), 300KPH is about 185 MPH. Lickity split. Furthermore, it rides and is propelled not by wheels but magnetism. I believe it is the only working public transient maglev train in existence. For you jackasses that like to pick apart details and might find another working maglev train in outer Mongolia or somewhere --bite me. I don't care. This particular train moves as fast as a NASCAR car moves. I kept wondering where the locals were with their Maglev t-shirts drinking beer and screaming something in Mandarin that sounded like "Earnhardt". Wheee.
Today, we went to the temple of the Jade Buddha. This temple is a destination for Buddhists I'm told. The temple was amazing. I won't bore you with the details, but there must be a few dozen Buddhas in the temple in every configuration and color. Some of the Buddhas dated back to 600AD. That would make them the same age as Larry King and Dick Clark. The craftsmanship of the statues were simply stunning. The Jade Buddha was made from one piece of Jade and was maybe 6ft tall. I will upload pictures when it doesn't cost so much to do so.
Social networking websites including this blog are blocked by the Chinese government. This blog is made possible by satellite internet links from the cruise ship.
We leave in a few hours to start the cruise.
Al
No comments:
Post a Comment