We woke in the early morning of July 1 and headed for the airport in Hanoi (Vietnam). By mid-afternoon we had arrived in Shanghai, China. I had booked us in for 2 nights at a REAL hotel to celebrate Jim's birthday (july 1). We typically stay at backpacker hostels...this means shared bathrooms, lots of westerners (good to meet people...), usually kind of dirty and noisy. So, we got settled in our real hotel which included towels, soap, and our very own bathroom!! (our standards really have plummeted).

We had arrived in China without a guide book or a map of the city so our first task was to find an English bookstore so that we could get oriented. Thankfully, we had purchased a photocopied version of a Mandarin phrasebook, in Vietnam, so we were able to ask for directions.

We got 'dressed up' (as dressed up as our 2 outfits will allow) and went out in search of a good place to have a birthday dinner. We celebrated with a bottle of wine and two beautiful crab dishes, one was a curry and the other sauteed with garlic!! YUM! We topped our meal off with a trip to Haagen das...which seems to be all over Shanghai.

The weekend was spent exploring the city. It claims to be the most Western of China's metropoli. We visited the National History Museum, which was a beautifully laid out display of China's history from about 6000 BC to 1200 AD...that's a lot of history! Everything from paintings, poetry (think Ming dynasty vases...Jim's favorite), sculpture, and jade carvings.

Saturday night we had a big night out. We got 'dressed up' again and headed to the theater to see the Chinese acrobats. The things that these people could do with their bodies was rediculous. They would do a trick...say, balance a platter of flaming candles on their hand while doing a back bend, then they would top that by balancing candles on their hand and their head and they would continue to top their tricks until you were staring at them open-mouthed saying that is not possible. Amazing.

Sunday afternoon we visited the Yunnan gardens and a surrounding bazaar area. We spent several hours in a tea house participating in a traditional tea ceremony. This is a sensory experience. Before they brew the tea, they bring it to you in a little cup for you to touch and smell the tea. The first pot they brew and pour in little cups for smelling the aroma and warming the cups. Then you get to taste it. The tea that I chose, a jasmine tea, opened like a flower when it was brewed, and it tasted smooth and fruity...not bitter at all.

After our tea-house adventure we were hungry and on our waitresses advice we headed to a restaurant which was 'famous' for it's crab steamed buns (kind of like dumplings). So, with a Chinese menu in front of us (NO, we cannot read Chinese) we did a bit of pointing to dishes and pointing to characters in our phrase book and somehow ended up with quite a bit of food. However, the 'crab' dumplings were a bit disappointing (for me, the vegetarian), as they turned out to be mostly pork.

We had some serious business to take care of while in Shanghai. We needed to get our visas to go to Russia. This included getting a lot of paperwork in order, they love paperwork! We had arranged to get 'visa support' documents from a Russian travel agent online and for some reason this process was taking them way too long. We ended up waiting around in Shanghai for 6 days to get the paperwork...and once we got it...we couldn't go to the Russian embassy because it is closed on Wednesdays! Obtaining our visas was another adventure, we waited in line for an hour and a half, then spent 3 hours inside of the embassy filling out paperwork and waiting for the officials to finish reading the newspaper to help us. Of course, since we are US citizens, we got to fill out an additional questionnaire (including our last three places of employment, residences, and schools attended) and pay an extra fee...
Most importantly, we have the visa and get to go to Russia!!!

The acrobats