Quinn Checks In

These first few days have felt like a complete upheaval of my normal routine. Jetlag mixed with nerves, and a city filled with more people than live in the entire Bay Area, takes its toll on you. The flight wasn’t nearly as bad as you would think. Thirteen hours is daunting, but when you’re surrounded by your friends, it becomes much more bearable. The dancers actually ended up commandeering most of the space on the plane to stretch, gather, and talk. I’m afraid it threw the flight attendants into quite a tizzy, as it seemed they were unaccustomed to people wanting to get up and move around as frequently as we did.

Elana Altman curls up with a book on the plane (photo by Quinn Wharton)

We arrived in Shanghai around 5:30 Friday night and made it to the hotel around 9pm. It was immediately apparent that things were going to be different here. When traveling, things never happen like you’ve planned, so you always expect change. Exhibit A: Upon arrival at the airport, we were taken down an escalator and out to the curb to get on a bus. Then our guide pulled us back inside, up the same escalator, onto an overpass over the road, and down the other side to a different curb to meet the bus. It may not sound so bad, but when you have 75 sleepy dancers with twice as much luggage, it’s like an epic wildebeest migration!

Most everybody spent the next day exploring the city. A group of us ended up wandering through the busy tourist area to get to the older, more prestigious area of the city on the river, called The Bund. When we arrived, all we saw were cranes, bulldozers, and large white walls; construction had begun to redo the whole waterfront for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Not just the waterfront, but the entire city seems to be under construction. The view from our hotel room consists of endless cranes and construction sites. The amount of high-rises makes SF’s downtown look tiny by comparison. So, since our plan for riverfront sightseeing was ruined, we turned inwards and ventured back into the city. One of the girls recommended we go to a restaurant she found in her Lonely Planet guidebook. It turned out to be the best decision of the day! It was a gaudy, red and gold ballroom filled with big white tables with lazy susans on each one. (Side note, the lazy susan might be one of mankind’s greatest inventions; I think all households should invest in one.)

Cables in Shanghai (photo by Quinn Wharton)

The restaurant was a dim sum establishment and it was fantastic. And by fantastic, I mean tasty, mouthwatering, authentic Chinese food. There is always apprehension when you’re ordering by pointing at  items on a menu in a foreign country. We must have ordered 10 or 12 different dishes and each one was not only “Western-palate accessible”, but still authentic as well. We had sweet and sour crispy chicken; spicy black pepper beef fried rice;and vegetable, shrimp, and pork dumplings. Not to mention won ton soup, sautéed mushrooms, and some of the most delicate tea I’ve ever had. We couldn’t come close to finishing everything! The cherry on top of the whole meal was that the bill ended up costing us only 10 dollars per person. The whole experience warmed me to this country very quickly.

Yum! Charlene Cohen at lunch in Shanghai (photo by Quinn Wharton)