We landed in Shanghai, China, kind of late. By time we cleared customs and took the subway to our new apartment, it was after 10pm. The Airbnb host had sent really awful directions, so we wandered around an apartment complex with about 30 buildings in it, in the dark, dragging luggage, and picking up a few creepy “followers” along the way. We finally found the place, let ourselves in, realized the airbnb was nothing as described, and went to sleep.
We spent the next day registering with the police (required by law and very discouraged by our airbnb host).
Deciphering menus was tricky…
Eating and trying to figure out what was around us took most of the day, so by time the kitchen sink flooded the kitchen, we were ready to make a move away from the apartment. We secured a better and cleaner and safer place to move to the next morning. Our new host was amazing, and we were over the moon to escape the first apartment. I figure we were about due for some things to start having hiccups.
A pretty standard apartment complex.
The next two days weren’t exactly as we planned. We spent one day locating and going to a local hospital for a doctor visit and some meds for an infection. The walk in visit with the doctor, the medicine, and leaving took less than 15 minutes and cost $5USD. While it wasn’t a hugely successful visit for me due to translation issues, it is clearly a cost effective and efficient way to treat locals for pretty basic medical needs. I suppose in the most populated city in the world (24 million), an efficient way to provide healthcare is necessary. The next day we ended up traveling into the city center and going to an international hospital for the appropriate medication. Seeing the specialist, having tests, and walking out with the (proper) medication cost only $200USD and was done in about an hour. That even seems more efficient that the American set ups.
Downtown Shanghai
The kids had been impressively cooperative, and as a bonus for their hard work at the elephant camp in Cambodia, we decided to do something we had long said we would never do: Disney Land. Secretly I was excited about Shanghai Disney. It has only been opened for a year and has a reputation for being the highest tech of all the Disneys. It lived up to its reputation.
Depending on how you look at it, we were either extremely lucky that it was raining the two days we were there, or horribly unlucky that it was raining. We found it to be unbelievably lucky.
Raincoats!
The first day, our longest wait to ride a ride was 10 minutes. By the end of the day, we were circling around and not waiting at all for our favorite ride: Tron.
Disney has also redone one of their rides that is apparently at all the parks: Peter Pan. It was wild! Basically you go through on a gondola into one (or two?) huge planetariums. Amazing technology! My favorite ride however (after Tron, of course) was the Pirates of the Caribbean. There were several planetariums set up that you floated through on a boat. It included robotics and incredible pirate fights that were so real that at one point I felt like I was getting sea sick on the ocean! Unbelievable. The kids were thrilled. I was thrilled!
The fireworks and laser water show at the end of the day was incredible as well
Of course the worst thing about China was the internet. Basically everything is blocked by the Great Firewall. BBC, Facebook, most news agencies, etc. were all blocked. We had a VPN which helped, but even then, the internet was so sporadic that it was usually just easier to not use it. Outside of that, Shanghai was brilliant. I would love to go back and visit again. Their subway system (the longest in the world as well as the most stops of any other in the world) was unbeatable. Cheap, easy to use and navigate, and everything offered in English made it great for us. This is city we hope to go back to and explore more. Since we have a 10 year visa, we should be able to pull it off!
Video highlights: