V and I are both really sick. So I guess a good day to catch up on blogging.

So China.

Day 1:

Kinda figured that the airport was going to be a shit show. Not knowing how the 72-hour visa for V was going to work, we had made plans to wait for each other before customs so we could ask together as I a) have an elementary knowledge of Mandarin and b) secretly suspect that the Shanghaiese won’t be that great at English.

We landed in different terminals.

Yup, so we both separated waited for each other in 2 different terminals. Which, I guess I should’ve figured, but mine spending hours on the Shanghai airport website prior to the flight yielded no answers. Finally managed, through a mixture of broken Mandarin and English, to figure out that Air Canada comes through a different terminal than China Southern. Went through customs with my realsies Chinese visa, waited for my bag, and hulled ass to the other terminal. By this time, it was already an hour past when both our flights had landed. Contemplated buying a SIM card at the airport. But. What a ripoff. They were trying to sell 500mb SIMs for like $30CAD. I told one lady that that was an insane price and it was too expensive and she just kept dropping the price (to what was still an insane amount for little to nothing MBs).

I finally stopped being a dummy and figured that I could just pop my Canadian SIM in and use roaming for a bit to try to get a hold of V. So, 2 hours later, and we were off!

We took the Shanghai Maglev Train (300 km an hour, #wut) to the centre.

Managed to find our hostel by asking for directions with my shitty Mandarin. Ate. And Slept. Annnnd that was Day 1…

Day 2:

I actually slept quite well so I woke up and went for run. V and I then walked around a bit, shopped, and ate roasted sweet potatoes from a street cart. So much childhood feels.

Dumpling’d and then we went home to get ready for NYE.

There were lots of people from other parts of China in our hostel. And it’s like they couldn’t comprehend that I was Chinese but didn’t speak Mandarin. Or, as they were just calling it: “Chinese”. Kept telling them that I spoke Cantonese, and they just stared at me like I invented a language.

We prepped for our night of inevitably heavy drinking by eating street meat that was on the corner diagonal of the club. Good location choice to the street meat vendor. Srsly doe, you can have all my monies if you feed drunken Kelly.

We went to DADA because a) it was free entry and b) our Yahoo* search had yielded promises of dancehall.

Since we got in relatively late, like 10:30, 11p, V’s idea was to do a shit load of tequila shots. Which, who am I to say no to tequila? 12 (13? 14? Who’s counting?) cumulative tequila shots and 1 wildly inapprops sexual advance later**, we were back across the street having post-dance street meat (that’s a thing right?) and park beers.

Day 3:

Woke up at the very respectable New Year’s Day time of 2p. Right away, had my personal space violated. One of the other Mainland girls stuck her head into my bunk to interrogate me about the type of Chinese I spoke. Unless you’re gonna bring me food, or is a hot man bringing me a make out, donnnn’t hover over my bed.

V and I went for a walk for some fresh, non hostel air and decided that a cheap Chinese massage would be a greeeaaat idea. We found a place close to our hostel and each got just a traditional Chinese massage. They just dumped us in a room with no instructions or anything. So we just got naked and got under our respective towels, as you do. Apparently not. We proceeded to freak out the guy that came in after to bring us tea. Apparently because it wasn’t an oil massage, the need to get naked was zero. Was mortified for a split second, and then it just got outrageously hilarious. The # of awkward massage experiences I’ve had since I’ve been travelling is too damn high. I did, however, get complimented on my Mandarin speaking abilities. Such a win for me. You think I can put that on my resume?

“Mandarin ability: Chinese masseuse said it was better than most Hong Kongers.”

BRB, China – we’re off to South Korea for some shenanigans ✌

#oneandahalfasians

Stay: Lucky Youth Hostel – close to the metro and clean enough. The beds were amazingly hard to sleep on. Loved it. Although, the people that ran it all sat together in the common room and just chatted amongst themselves the whole time. Didn’t really give off the vibe of a friendly hostel.

Shanghai, China Summary: New Year’s Eve’d. Will do more touristy things during Part b.

Duration: Dec 31 – Jan 2

*I most def did not like the complete lack of access on the internerds. I’m so completely and forever dependent on Google. Yahoo sucks balls and gives me ads for irrelevant shit. Like 10 ads before the actual search results.

**A guy from Wales asked if he could lick V’s asshole. UK men are definitely not winning on this trip thus far.

Sleep Log 2015.12.30: slept really well. Nice hard bed in China.
Sleep Log 2015.12.31: did not get home until like past 5a. Slept past noon but wasn’t the best sleep.
Sleep Log 2016.01.01: okay sleep. Probably due to doing nothing all day but eat and get massaged.