20250913 Saturday September 13, 2025 Janet’s Birthday in Shanghai
The ship had slipped up the Yangtze River delta and Huangpu River during the night, docking right across the Huangpu River from Shanghai’s financial district or Pudong (East of the Pu) and on Shanghai’s famous Bund, which was historically a promenade along the West Bank of the Huangpu River. This was the center of colonial Shanghai, with grand Western Architecture. It was the Wallstreet of the Orient from the 1860’s to the 1930’s.
While the Financial district has moved across the river into the skyscrapers of the Pudong, the Bund remains a vibrant district for both locals and tourists filled with hotels, malls, condominiums, parks and shops.
After breakfast, our first excursion was a bus ride to Yu Garden. This is a beautiful but crowded private garden surrounded by a huge shopping district with everything from hawker stalls to high end international brand stores. There are a lot of jewelry stores as well.
Ben’s Shanghai cousin had recommended a particular store that specializes in Burmese Jade bracelets, and it happened to be very close to the garden.
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Our local guide David pointed out a juxtaposition of the old and new where the peaks of one of the pagodas was backed by the top of the new Shanghai Tower, the second or third tallest building in the world. The pagoda was the tallest structure in Shanghai during most of the Chinese imperial era.
At the conclusion of our guided tour, we had an hour to explore independently. We headed for the jewelry store, where we found the bracelet Ben’s cousin had recommended.
Unfortunately it was too small for Janet’s wrist, but they had another Burmese jade bracelet of similar quality that did fit with some stern coaxing. There’s no way it’s going to accidentally fall off her wrist. We were able to haggle a similar discount and then some extra (total 65% off) because it was Janet’s 70th birthday- an auspicious year. She can now go through the Emperor’s side door shortcut in the Forbidden Palace in Beijing.
When we went to pay, we wanted to try to avoid the WeChat Payband AliPay international card fee of 3% by using Apple Pay, but their payment terminal would not accept that. The Jewelers the offered to take an additional 3% off to cover that fee, so we tried to use WeChat Pay. The Bank rejected the transaction, and it also rejected an attempt to use AliPay.
Ben suspected it was an automatic block because of the amount and foreign location, and expected a notification from the card issuer, but none came. The phone numbers on the back of the credit card returned a message that the number was invalid. We ran out of time and had to abandon the bracelet and take the tour bus back to the ship.
There we met Ben’s Cousin Jing and one of her sons, who had just finished his Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from UCSD, and is just now beginning his job search. They had arrived by subway and were waiting as we got off the bus.
We explained Ben needed to get his credit card out of the ship’s safe and contact the credit card company before we could go back out. It took some time to figure out the right calling codes to access the bank’s numbers from China, but then it was a fair bit of time on hold with the fraud department before we could get the account unfrozen and authorized for large purchases from China.
We walked across the street to the large mall where Ben’s Cousin had reservations for 12:30pm, and we were right on time. We had a lovely lunch and got to chat a bit within the comfort of the restaurant’s air conditioning using Google Translate to get to know each other a bit. Ben had no idea his cousin was an OB/GYN who had also recently retired. She has twin sons. One was with us, and the other is working on an advanced degree in biochemistry at Johns Hopkins. Smart kids! Ben’s cousin was very friendly and pleasant, as well as helpful, despite knowing only about as much English as Ben knows Mandarin, which isn’t a lot. Google translate’s frequent mis-translations were also a source of humor.
After lunch, she hailed a Didi which took us back to the jewelry store, this time armed with the physical credit card and prior authorization noted on the credit card company’s files. This time the transaction was successful.
We had some time to chat some more while the store produced an authentication certificate for the jade bracelet. We were able to get back to the ship with plenty of time to prepare for our next excursion and said our farewells to Ben’s cousin and her son. We hope to see them again in the future, and hope to host a visit to the US.
Our evening excursion was a dinner and acrobatics show. The dinner was in a restaurant that in the end was just OK. The food came out slowly and we didn’t know if there would be enough food because the portions were a bit meager on the first few courses, and for the longest time, we thought that would be all the food we would get. But other food eventually came out and everyone was sufficiently filled by the end. We have had much more impressive meals in Shenyang, Fujian Province, Xiamen and Beijing.
The acrobatic show was in the Shanghai Circus World. There is a circular center stage with some stage effects including disappearing platforms and a revolving platform. The acts began somewhat slowly, with some theatrical dancing with umbrellas trying to create a theme of some sort for the program. But then the acrobatic began in earnest with synchronized aerial silks, including some dramatic synchronized plunges.
There were see saw catapult artists who launched some of the gals 30 feet in to the air into a chair atop a pole, and a troupe of hoops and divers who could shoot their bodies through moving hoops in 3 dimensions and synchronized formations.
They had a duo on a high trapeze bar doing lifts and dangles high in the air but not swinging. Then the safety cushion below disappeared and they lowered the gal to where she literally disappeared into the floor. She then emerged in a glass tumbler like aquarium about 6’ in diameter and maybe 8’ tall which came up out of the floor of the stage. She was illuminated and did mermaid like dances underwater.
Then her partner plucked her dripping wet out of the aquarium and they did many of the same death defying lifts, twists and dangles 30’ above what now appeared to be a cup of water. How they managed to maintain their grip is a wonder.
They had an unusual twist on trampolines with a spring board suspended by two men’s shoulders like a narrow balance beam. The woman and man who did the gymnastics got the big applause, but I think the two men holding up the ends of the spring board really didn’t get the acknowledgement they deserved for having their spines hammered so severely throughout the whole routine.
We saw pole dancing taken to new heights as a pair of dancers scampered up and down a 40’ tall pole doing pairs dancing, dangles and lifts from the pole like Spiderman.
The most remarkable stunt involved a 20’ diameter cage and tiny motorcycles. They started out with one man zooming around, but then added a second, and even third. Then just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier, they added a fourth and a fifth motorcycle. It’s impossible to imagine how they didn’t all crash and end up in a heap at the bottom of that spherical cage. But then they added three more to make the impossible even more impossible. Frankly we were relieved when they finally opened the door and let them out one at a time.
The wrapped up with the umbrellas coming back out, morphing into a dance routine for the couple inside a spinning hoop, twirling around in circles around the arena. When one would seamlessly step out of the loop, leaving the other still orbiting around, it’s amazing they didn’t just fall to the ground from all the crazy spinning around.
It was a pretty amazing show. Unfortunately there was someone sitting a row or two above us who kept yelling “PUT DOWN YOUR BLOODY PHONE” every time this poor Chinese fellow picked up his iPhone to take a picture of anything on the arena floor. He wasn’t obstructing anyone’s view, and didn’t even have his phone up for any more than a couple of seconds. But without fail, the guy YELLED every single time that poor guy tried to take a picture. Everyone in a 50’ radius was turning their heads at the shouts. It was unbelievably rude.
Then on the bus back, after the bus stopped at the ship’s gangway, the driver only opened the front door because it was raining hard and the Viking crew members had created a covered pathway of umbrellas to the ship from the front bus exit. This same guy was YELLING and KICKING at the back door OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR! OMG. Then he was about to shove Janet down in the aisle of the bus because she wasn’t moving fast enough because she was letting someone in the row ahead get out.
Even though he was 6’ 5” and 280#, I was tempted to give him a quick lesson in etiquette. Completely raised by wolves. How anyone like that can be in a position to afford a cruise like this is beyond me. He must have inherited a fortune and been spoiled rotten his entire life. An extremely unpleasant fellow we will certainly be avoiding at all costs. Surprisingly, he was not the same guy who took Janet’s wet laundry out of the dryer but was certainly cut from the same rotten cloth. It’s a good thing the other 650 or so passengers on the ship are generally nice and well mannered educated people.
We ended the evening on a high note, with a Zoom call with our kids, who wanted to wish Janet a Happy 70th Birthday. They have all been back at work the last week and adjusted back to life at home. John unfortunately had a bunch of souvenirs from China that he had intended to share with people at work and friends confiscated by Customs and Immigrations in Vancouver because they were bird related products (preserved duck tongues and such), even though they were factory processed, preserved and in commercial packaging. Price, however, somehow managed to get a package of smoked duck necks from Wuhan through and the people at his office got a real kick out of that.
Ciara and Tom regaled us with tales of their adventures in Tibet and Thailand, including an unfortunate bout of food poisoning and a few unexpectedly arduous hikes. But they had a honeymoon with stories to last a lifetime.
Viking had baked Janet a special birthday cake which was waiting for us when we got back in the room.
Tomorrow is our second day in Shanghai. We will be visiting the Shanghai Tower, which is either the second or third tallest building in the world, depending on how you define a building’s height, and the Shanghai museum. We had also toured this in 2006, but hope that our guides will provide some new highlights and insights on key exhibits.
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