To Shanghai- Thursday, August 4, 2016

     Jackie had told us earlier that during World War II, the American squadrons called the Flying Tigers had their base very near to where the Guilin airport is.  Today, after breakfast at the hotel, we gathered our bags together to return to that airport for our last in-country flight, this time to Shanghai.

     We liked Jackie well enough, though at times Scott found it difficult to hear and understand him.  That probably had as much to do with Scott's bad hearing as it did with Jackie's soft-spoken manner.  Ultimately, he did a lot to accommodate us, especially with the threatening weather, and even though he started walking fast, he did adjust his pace slower for us.  We ended up tipping him and our driver similar to how much we did the other two.

     The airports may be different sizes, but the boarding procedure has been the same in each, so we've gotten that down.  They aren't much different than American airports, though Anna might point out that the bathrooms are very different.  She has experienced them more than any of the rest of us have.

     Today, we flew Shanghai Airlines, which means we've flown a different airline for each of our three in-country flights.  Air travel is never fun, especially when you are Scott's size, and this trip has seen a lot of it.

     Our guide for Shanghai is "Amy."  She met us at the airport by taking the subway.  Our driver was delayed because of a rainstorm, but that gave us a chance to grab some McDonald's at the airport for lunch.

     Amy explained that Pu means river and Dong means east.  The Pudong airport is on the east side of the Huangpu River that divides Shanghai in half.  Historically, the west side was the better side and the east side was run-down.  Amy's family knew a saying: "I'd rather have a bed on the west side of Shanghai than a house on the east."  Our hotel is on the west side, but the skyscrapers that make Shanghai's skyline today are on the east.

     We're at the Bund Hotel, and once again have two separate rooms.  The girls chose 1501 and we took 1516.  When we got off the elevator, the sign pointed us in opposite directions.  We separated and walked around winding halls, and finally laughed when we came around opposite corners and found the rooms were actually next door to each other.  The rooms are nice, but the beds are hard again.

     We rested for a bit in the hotel, then we went to explore around it.  We first went to a market that Julie had spotted and bought some pop and snacks for the evenings.  We went looking for dinner and found a KFC.  Julie tried ordering and they almost got everything except they served her hot water, not cold.  It's a Chinese thing.  What we thought would be popcorn chicken turned out to be chicken fried with rice around it.

     Anna and Scott went off on their own to find Nanjing Road, a pedestrian-only area that is known for its shopping.  They didn't find it, but they did find a cool bookstore that had quite a few floors.  Of course, all the books were in Chinese, but Scott wanted to see if he could find DVDs or Blurays with the Monkey King.

     We regrouped at the hotel and left for a performance of "Chinese acrobats" at Shanghai Circus World.  John had talked us into buying these tickets as an add-on when we were back in Beijing.  (He probably got a cut on the side.)  If you've ever seen Chinese acrobats, then you know what amazing contortions and feats they are capable of.  If you haven't, then words don't do them justice.  There are apparently several troops that perform in Shanghai, but Amy agreed that these were the best.

     We weren't disappointed.  The program tonight was called, "ERA- Intersection of Time." The name of the show is really just an excuse to juxtapose costumes and imagery from across the history of Shanghai.  There was not a "plot" to the show, but a series of scenes featuring not only acrobatics, but what we'd call "stunts" as well.  Contortionists made their bodies into shapes so that their shadows didn't even look human anymore.  The strength of everyone was unbelievable.  In some ways, we've the feats seemed to call back to other performances we've seen before.  One scene for example, when a man and woman were swinging gracefully above us while suspended by silks wrapped around their arms seemed to be similar to the Lion King show at Disney World, but that didn't diminish the performance.

     One has to wonder how these feats are conceived of.  "OK.  Two guys can launch you from a see saw.  Can you flip after they do it?  You can?  OK, but can you do it while wearing 8-foot stilts.  OK, but how about a single 8-foot pole on your feet?"  Things seemed to get absurd that way, but they kept going.

     There probably wasn't a bad seat in the house, but we were sitting in the second row, so we got to see the faces of many of the performers up close.  Some were intense scowls, and some seemed carefree and cool.  There was a lot of tricks and effects used when scenes were changing and to add to the drama.  Things and people would rise up from the stage, descend from the ceiling, and disappear back underneath.

     Certainly, some of the stunts were death-defying.  Each half of the show ended with a dizzying stunt that's hard to comprehend even as you're watching it happen.  The end of the first act ended with what was called the "Wheel of Life".  It was the size of a small ferris wheel, with three smaller round chambers in it.  When the acrobats started spinning the big wheel by running and jumping within the small ones, it almost looked like fun.  But soon, they were on the outside of the wheels at a dizzying height.  Though they seemed to stumble occasionally, they thankfully never fell because safety wires were impossible to use.  The last performance in the show was when a motorcycle began riding around inside a cage in the shape of a large sphere.  That was impressive, but can you do it with two motorcycles in the same cage?  How about three?  Four?  Five?  Ultimately there were nine motorcycles, weaving in and out within the sphere in patterns that were dizzying to just to watch.  One miscue would certainly mean death and/or dismemberment for the performers.

     Photography was not allowed, but there are some promotional pictures below from the Internet.  [We bought a DVD of the performance, but sadly, it doesn't seem to play on our DVD players at home.]