Cruisin': Part 1 (of 3) of My Trip to Shanghai, Kobe, Fukuoka, Busan and Jeju (whew)

Day 0 (April 21, 2008) MANILA - SHANGHAI

We left the house at around 4:45pm to account for traffic and the long line at immigration. Ran into Cheyenne (Rafael) there, along w/ her mom and another companion as they were taking a connecting flight from Iloilo and headed for Australia, then at the waiting lounge I then saw Evangeline Chua and her littler brother, both of them heading for GuangZhou for a trade fair. Haven’t even left the country yet and already I’m bumping into friends I’d prefer to have seen abroad, if only to increase my simultaneous surprise and pleasure of doing so.

One chicken sandwich and a bottle of C2 Iced Tea served as an early dinner before our 8pm departure. Tried listening to Bill Bryson’s audiobook on the life of Shakespeare, but it proved to be a dull “read.” Good thing I had a portable DVD player at hand to help pass the time on Cebu Pacific’s no-frills or thrills flight, where they sell you the stuff (i.e. food and drinks) you’d expect to get gratis, then pass the time w/ asinine parlor games. I watched the first 1 and ½ eps of the Sharpe series (starring Sean Bean), not knowing that each show’s running time was as long as an average feature film. (Hmm, no wonder that “hour” took forever to finish.)

One 45-minute drive from the airport later we arrived at the Citadines Apart’Hotel. We had a bit of trouble using the elevator at first, turns out we needed to swipe our card in the slot before we could press on the keypad. Our room was a 1-bed and 1-bath apartment, w/ a completely stocked kitchen (at least w/ it’s cutlery) and fully furnished living room. Unfortunately TV viewing was restricted to the latter (unlike in other rooms where there was a hole in the wall separating living room from bedroom and the TV can swivel to accommodate whoever wants to use it), w/c, along w/ a DVD player, made up for me having to sleep on the couch’s pullout bed.

Day 1 (April 22, 2008) SHANGHAI

The gang went around the Apart’Hotel’s neighborhood looking for a place to have breakfast. We ended up at a small Ongpin-style restaurant where the staff seemed surprised at receiving so many patrons this early in the morning. We had noodles and juicy dumplings.

Later on our tour guide brought us to the Super Brand Mall (seemingly named w/ an instant Chinese-English electronic dictionary), where I was surprised to find a Tom’s World arcade. Guess that bear in a spacesuit mascot idea wasn’t a Pinoy invention. Another surprise was the absence of toilet paper in most (if not all) of the cigarette-smelling men’s rooms (ironic “No Smoking” sign inside them notwithstanding) on all 8 floors of this mall. So many shops, so little time.

Next stop was Yuyuan Garden, which, w/ its numerous shops and restaurants looked less a garden and more a Chinese version of Greenbelt Shopping Center in Makati City. (Turns out you had to pay extra to enter the garden, w/c to a cheapskate like myself means I’m doing a lot of window shopping.) With so much ground to cover even my loafers were starting to buckle.

Finally found a McDonald’s w/ a decent bathroom (read: non-squat toilet), so I had a late Chicken McNugget lunch, followed w/ a vanilla latte from Starbucks. The seedier looking shops at the back reminded me of those stalls I saw in Beijing, where they sold only buttons, adhesives or even just paper. Some shops even sold toy robots that were painted red and blue, given a helmet and a mask over its mouth. Voila: an Optimus Prime variant/bootleg action figure.

Dinner was at Ding Tai Fung at the South Block Mall of XinTianDi, a classier version of WangFuJing or HouHai (sans artificial lake/canal). The restaurant’s walls had illustrations of various celebrities, some of them even autographed.

The tour guide then took us to ZhongShan Road to check out some of Shanghai’s famous landmarks from across the HuangPu River, or at least as much as we could see this foggy evening, like the tackily lit Orient Pearl TV Tower. I bought myself some gelato for dessert.

(In case anyone’s wondering how I’m able to recall all the names of these places when I can’t even tell you where I had dinner last week, two words: Google search.)

Day 2 (April 23, 2008) SHANGHAI, THEN TO SEA

Taking advantage of the electric kettle, breakfast consisted of 1 sachet of Ovaltine and half a bowl of instant noodles (shared other half w/ Ma). While packing for our trip to the cruise ship one of the zippers on the Samsonite luggage came off. Lost something in translation while explaining my dilemma to the front desk, as I asked for pliers but they had a guy bring up some plastic rope, instead. With time to kill and an appetite to salve I took a stroll outside. No MacDonald’s in sight, so I went back to Citadines and waited for our bus.

The bus took us to a “pre-departure” building; w/c was apparently still far off from the actual harbor. Almost like checking in the front desk of a hotel then having to take a cab to get to your room. Even w/ our pre-confirmation status the lines were still long. Finally we received a “gift bag” of water, chips and cookies for our approx. 1-hour ride to the harbor, and were greeted w/ strong, chilly winds. Great, it’s Vancouver all over again. When we got up the gangplank we were greeted by a Pinoy security guard. Seems there’s going to be more Filipinos working on the ship than vacationing in it.

Our interior “large” stateroom on Royal Caribbean’s Vision Class ship Rhapsody of the Seas definitely looked a lot bigger in the online pictures. Instead of 2 regular bed we got 4 fold-out bunk-style beds. Naturally I got the top bed. It was smaller than my dorm room in BLCU, and the bathroom’s shower area was tighter than a phonebooth. Toilet was a combo H2O-vaccum model, w/c made flushing w/ the lid up very noisy.

We had a late buffet lunch at the Windjammer Café, followed by an emergency drill a couple of hours later, then afterwards I hit the gym w/ Elissa and Erlynn, where I was hit w/ a bad case of stomach cramps. Hate it when a burp gets trapped in my gut. Thankfully that passed (Elyssa's suggestion of drinking hot tea worked) before I visited the sauna and Jacuzzi, unlike the bout of seasickness some of us in the group experienced.

Dinner was at the Edelweiss restaurant as we served by an Indian and Pinoy waiter. I ordered the salmon. The optimist in me thinks all the attention and great service from the waiters is just them loving their job. The pessimist in me suspects it has more to do w/ the fact that the ship has "gratuity guidelines" suggesting how much to tip each waiter per day, per customer. Lessee, minimum of $2.50 from approx. 1700 passengers times 3 meals a day for 7 days comes to... a lot of freakin' tips.

Elyssa’s mom was made to eat some crackers and a Fuji apple to help ease her seasickness. Too bad the same couldn’t be done for Elyssa, who said she hurled into her barf bag the moment she stepped out of the diner.

After an easy-come-easy-go moment w/ a quarter and a casino slot machine, we caught of bit of the husband-and-wife team juggling act at the Broadway Melodies Theatre. Physically speaking they looked more like a magic act, w/c made the realization that they just juggled (and had to shout nicely at the audience for applause) all the more disappointing.

Day 3 (April 24, 2008) AT SEA

Ship’s really rock-a-bye’in now, and we still have a whole day of sea travel before we reach Kobe. Tried to walk like a zombie to keep balance, but for the most part ended up walking like a drunk. Rocky waves days like this might explain why the plates and glasses at Windjammer are made of plastic/fiberglass.

‘Lynn, Lyssa and I went down to the medical bay at Deck 1 to look for some anti-seasickness patches for Pa. There were none available in the pill vending machine (w/ a small basket full of quarters for use on it), so the doctor told us to look for it at the duty-free shops up on Deck 6. No patches there, either, so I ended up buying a pair of non-medicated anti-drowsiness wristbands for 15 bucks(!) Why is placebo and acupressure so pricey?

I spent time hanging at the library, w/c was very accommodating, having scheduled meeting for “Friends of Bill W.” (aka Alcoholics Anonymous) and “Friends of Dorothy” (aka gays). Makes me wonder if that “Cigar Aficionados” meeting might also be code for something else, but I digress. I watched one episode of Sharpe before heading back to the gym (yes, I brought several sets of gymwear), where again I got cramps. Maybe I shouldn’t breathe through my mouth.

Tonight was the Captain’s Ball, so that meant formal wear, w/c for me meant to dress up like it was JS Prom. Didn’t pack a jacket, so I made do w/ a dress shirt (w/ the fashion faux pas of my white T-shirt peeking out underneath). Compared to the other guests I was definitely underdressed. (Hell w/ it, just drink the champagne.) After some ballroom dancing (but not by me) the passengers was introduced to Norwegian Captain Stein (that’s his first name) and the rest of his international crew. The Captain mentioned the number of nationalities currently on the cruise, w/ Koreans dominating the roster. Photo-ops w/ other crewmembers followed.

Kobe to come.