Month: February 2016

(Saturday, February 27th, 2016)

I was dissatisfied with the small pics in “Many Photos” so I experimented. Here are some larger versions of the same pics. The pics in “Raw Photos” in Dropbox still have more resolution. The first 32 of these are visible in “Raw Photos”, but the rest won’t get uploaded there until I leave China and (might have to wait until we cross the Pacific) get to a fast internet service.

 

(Thursday, February 25th, 2016)

At first the internet in the hotel was far too slow to consider uploading some pictures. The maps took about 15 minutes each to upload, and they weren’t big files. But, this morning, after a couple of days of slowness, it was much faster. I took advantage of that and uploaded the already-on-Dropbox captioned pictures, and some more.

Here they are in this one post. They mostly catch up with existing posts, as far as content. I hope it all works!

Postscript: WordPress edited these to small images. Hmm. Well, they are better than nothing. All of these, in their full form, will be in the folder:

“– Captioned General Photo Copies” in “Raw Photos”

… once Dropbox works, probably when I get to Houston the first week of April or so.

So, consider this an unintentional tease.

Enjoy.

Whew! That’s it for today.

 

 

(Thursday, February 24th, 2016)

Just a little admin…

The ship on which I will soon be a passenger (best guess March 3rd) is the “Rickmers Antwerp”.

Here is the Rickers link for information about that ship:

http://www.rickmers-linie.com/?id=443&uid=29

It seems that a few of you are using various ship locator websites, so I won’t try to list them all here. “Rickmers Antwerp” is the new ship name for those sites.

(Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016)

Hey I’ve been gone from Phoenix a month. Wow.

I am in a hotel in Tanggu, a suburb of Tianjin. A city inside of a big city. I have intermittent good internet – that is, it is okay fast, but it cuts out or slows down every so often. We don’t know “good” until we get “not quite good”, eh?

Anyway, I thought I would try attaching some media to a post, to see how many steps are involved and whether it’s worth doing vs. waiting for Houston and fast reliable internet, and of course Dropbox.

Here’s that attempt. The before and after ship switch maps. Both of these will show up on Dropbox, but I thought they might be fun to try to slide into a post. Here we go…

This is the old map:

Map 2016-02-15

This is the new map:

Map 2016-02-23

I don’t get to go to Yokohama or Masan. Masan was going to be a very short visit anyway, probably not an on-shore visit, but Yokohama had promise. Oh well. I do get to go to Montoir, France, and make a few extra and possibly useful stops on the US coast.

Of course, and I already have some experience, “these plans might change”. Ho ho!

More later, and for sure a post about whatever I do in Tianjin and possibly Beijing (a quick train ride away). I’ll try to post something before I lose this internet capability.

It was very cold and windy today, never got above 35F with a stiff breeze. Walking around was okay but not as much fun as usual. I think it is a reasonably safe bet to say that I was the only one wearing a green Phantom Ranch beanie around town today. But it’s a big town!

Oh, one more thing. This will only be important for some of you… As I type this I have the only sports channel available showing on the TV. What’s showing? With Chinese commentators, of course. Snooker. I may be up late.

(Sunday, February 21, 2016)

A few days ago I visited Shanghai.

As part of a family trip to China in 2004, we spent some jet-lag-recovery time in Shanghai before going on to Chongqing for a nice trip down the Yangtze River. I had fond memories of that time in Shanghai and was eager to compare.

I got in late one night (see “In and Out of Shanghai”), spent that night in the same hotel we used in 2004, spent the entire next day walking about, and returned to the ship the next night. A short visit, but quite nice.

Shanghai is more polluted than it was in 2004. To be fair, we visited in summertime then, and it is winter now. I know, from having lived in Denver and other places, that sometimes wintertime is more difficult due to captured smog via temperature inversions, that sort of thing. It was noticeably hazy, and I could feel a slight headache that I think was due to pollution. Later, back at the docks, far away from the city center and with an ocean breeze, it felt a lot better, so I do think it was pollution and not just mist. A few people were wearing masks over their nose and mouth. Not many.

My hotel was right in the center of things, near Nanjing Road pedestrian way, and near the Bund.

The Bund is a long, wide, pedestrian parkway along one side of the Huangpu River that snakes through Shanghai. The Bund, and quite a few old (1930’s) financial buildings, line the west side of the river. Across the river are the new areas, with many very tall buildings, and a few buildings that, more than simply “very tall”, have each been “tallest in the world” at one time or another. This new area is the new financial center. Nanjing Road runs perpendicular to the Bund, on the west side of the river. Part of Nanjing Road is closed to traffic, making Nanjing Road a wide pedestrian walkway, with stores and attractions, between People’s Park (a nice inner-city park with a museum or two) on the west and the Bund and the river on the east.

My hotel was the Central Hotel Shanghai. Posh. It caters to international business people, and was way more than I needed but was a known quantity for me and that counted for a lot, especially arriving late at night. It felt exactly the same as it did when we were all there in 2004.

In the morning I walked first west on Nanjing Road, to its beginning, then walked the length of it to the Bund, stopping in some shops and sitting to watch others passing by every so often. It was a nice day for doing so, about 50F, sunny. Quite a few areas that, in 2004, were either still part of old-town Shanghai or were under construction, are now gone. The whole street is “finished”. And some of what was lost was some of what I liked about Nanjing Road.

In 2004 we met friends and relatives just outside our hotel, at a cafe with tables street-side. We had coffee, and I also remember a different “teriyaki chicken” than that which I was used to in the US. In 2016 I could find none of those places on Nanjing Road. I had to go down side streets, not a burden but different, to find something like that. On Nanjing Road itself were big storefronts of high-end vendors. Oh my, Singapore casino revisited, only bigger! It seems that in the intervening time Nanjing Road has gone upscale. There were places to get your Rolex or your Prada or your Polo, none of which I required.

There was a friendly looking new public area, kind of a semicircle of benches in front of a huge screen. On the screen in the morning while I walked by were some store ads, but I can imagine that this place is used for some fun stuff, like bands or something like that, at night, in warmer times or on the weekends. That was new, and not just upscale, so that felt good.

There were some police walking their beat down the street, looking serious, but not ominous. All black uniforms, trim, with “Police” in English and (I assume) Chinese on their back. Always two of them, and they walked one behind the other, not side-by-side. Not just one set, but several sets that I saw. That seemed unusual. I wonder if someone had decided that this technique was more effective than walking side by side. Again – not ominous, just noticeable.

There were a lot of electric bicycles, electric scooters, gas-powered scooters, scooters and bicycles with various types of carrying contraptions, and more people per scooter than you might think safe. In general, Chinese automobile drivers consider the traffic lights as suggestions. Scooter drivers don’t even take the hint. So even if you have a green walking sign facing you, you must stay vigilant, especially for scooters. I admit to some scooter-envy – there were some pretty cool ones. Different than in the US, there were a few two-strokes out and about. You could smell them as well as hear them. I am sure their constant-loss oiling systems don’t help the pollution, even though I loved two-stroke motorcycles when I was growing up. (By the way, our ship’s huge engine is a two-stroke, but there is absolutely no comparison. A post on the engine will happen sooner or later.)

I spent some time on side streets, but took few photos, because the shops had vendors in front, the people were doing their laundry, and I felt a bit like an intruder. I did find a shop at which I bought toothpaste – easy to ask for with the simplest of motions! The juxtaposition of Nanjing street with its high-end stores, and poor tiny-room shops only tens of feet away, on side streets, was immense. There seemed to be no middle ground. (I found a “middle ground” later, but across the river.)

I walked up and down the Bund for a while, quite nice. Lots of good photo ops for buildings across the river. It was crowded, I expected that, but not anywhere near as crowded as on a summer night in 2004 when I had a sense of claustrophobia. Much nicer for me in 2016. There was a long garden wall, with flowers in tiny planters making art with their organized colors. A photo is better than that description, look for it. I repeated some photos I took in 2004, of the Mao statue and things like that. The tall building skyline had certainly changed. In 2004 the Pearl Tower, a huge post with balls midway and on top, was the tallest thing around. We took photos from its observation deck. A few buildings now look down upon the Pearl Tower, but the old Pearl still looks unique. So many people had selfie sticks, taking photos of themselves with the tall buildings in the background. Selfie sticks were not around in 2004.

Just off the Bund there were cafes with outside seating. Not quite as nice as those that used to be on Nanjing road facing pedestrians, as these ones faced a street, but still nice. I grabbed a bite there. There was a scooter parked, and locked to a post, on the sidewalk. The only one on the sidewalk. After a parked car left, I watched a security guard come over and move the scooter by dragging it over the curb, almost spilling it off its kickstand, but getting it totally into a parking spot on the road, next to the curb, still tied with its lock to the pole. I grinned at him as he was leaving it, and he chuckled, patted his hands together as if to say “there, that’s cleaned up”, and went on his way. Sidewalk clean again. No ticket. I would have felt really bad if he had dropped it – I could have helped him but chose not to get involved. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that happen in the US.

You can cross the river by underground walkway, or you can take the ferry, which I did. 5 RMB (less than a buck). The ferry seemed the same as it did in 2004, quite fun, with quick approach to the dock, almost scary. I think he’s done it a few thousand times. Non-existent crowd control. In China the “control” part of “crowd control” is not the correct word – I’ll keep thinking to see if I can come up with the correct word.

Across the river, and all of a sudden it’s a totally different feel. Early 20th century on that side, 21st century on this side. There are wide modern streets, less scooters and bikes and more cars and buses. Less of a walking sort of place, although walking was not out of the question. Being closer to the buildings, some of them were hidden from view, exposing themselves as you walk in one direction or another.

The tallest tower is just called the Shanghai Tower. I am not sure if it is completed yet. The outside looked complete. I am pretty sure that it is second in the world, at around 2000 feet. (There’s a 2700-foot tower in the Middle East somewhere, the winner!)

Perspective assist: I think I have this right: We climb about 4000 feet from the Colorado River up to the South Rim (~2400 to ~6400), for those of you familiar with the hike from Phantom Ranch in the Grand Canyon. So if we put this tower on the banks of the river it would rise above the Inner Basin, slightly above the Tonto Plateau.

The Shanghai Tower was very impressive. Looking at it from across the river, from several different views nearer to it, and a little bit from a neighboring tower, I never quite felt that I got the “whole thing” in my head. I think that’s an architectural accomplishment. It looked to me like a very tall cylinder, that you only barely get a hint of because you only get glimpses of the “inner cylinder” from various views. Around this cylinder it looked as if it were wrapped with a thick blanket. There is a crease going all the way up, spiraling around it. And the walls, on the way up, are not straight. Each view of it denied you the sense that you were looking at something going straight up. I walked all the way around it, trying to get to go up in it. All the entrances were closed, with guards. I don’t know if it was specially closed that day or just not ready yet. Having absolutely no skills in that area, I decided against climbing it. When I was leaving Shanghai later that evening, from the taxi, I noticed that there were not so many lights on in that building, compared with the other tall buildings. I concluded, to myself at least, that it was as yet unoccupied.

Besides the Oriental Pearl Tower that I already mentioned, the other two truly tall buildings are the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center. All four buildings look totally different from one another, all interesting. The Shanghai World Financial Center was the next tallest, and had an observatory tour, so I went on up.

The Shanghai World Financial Center starts semi-square at the bottom, then two sides lean in until they meet at the top. There are a couple creases at the right places. At the top there is a cutout section. And it twists a little bit on the way up. So it looked like the tallest, skinniest bag with a handle that you’ve ever seen. I am sure the designers have a description that they prefer to mine! The simplified models of it, available at shops as keychains, clocks, pins, etc. etc., unfortunately to me all looked like beer bottle openers. It really does look a lot more impressive than my descriptions.

On the way to the elevators there was a cool little room in which someone had made a scale model of, basically, downtown Shanghai, with all the towers, all the buildings, both sides of the river, with lights that could be turned on and off. It was in a dark room, so my pics didn’t come out as well as I wanted, but I was impressed by the modeling.

Up we went in a fast elevator, ears feeling it, the height we’re achieving constantly updated above the elevator door. To the 94th floor, some shops, then an escalator to the 97th floor. Pretty high up. We looked down at the Jin Mao Tower, the other tall one, and the Pearl Tower. The Shanghai Tower was to our side, and we never got a good look at it. The view of Shanghai was amazing. Even with the haze there were so many buildings to see, and you could see the river winding around.

We were in a long narrow room that is the bottom of the cutout section. So then we took another elevator, this time to the 100th floor. That’s a long narrow room that is the top of the cutout section. The views from 3 more stories up were slightly different but mostly the same: Awesome. But for one major difference. Since we were at the top of the cutout looking down, they made part of the floor out of glass. So you could see straight down. There are a couple of lines of about 2 feet wide, maybe 30 or 40 feet long, of those glass sections. I think they made a good choice. It is eerie enough looking down through your feet, maybe 1600 feet down or so. I am sure they could have made the whole floor of mostly glass, and would have scared too many people. Even as it was, there were several people who would simply not go near the glass portions. I can understand that. ‘Twas quite fun, though, looking down like that. In the absolutely largest bottle opener in the world.

It’s a shame there can’t be many “#1’s”. But that doesn’t mean that, like some little kids’ ball games, everybody should get a “participation award”. Having said that, though, this building proudly stated their winnings, even though there had to be dates attached. 2008: World’s Tallest Building in the categories “highest occupied floor” and “height to top of roof”. 2009: “highest observation deck”. Not bad at all. It was fun to be up there. I would still give them “world’s biggest bottle opener”. We’d have to get a big enough bottle to prove the claim though – that might be a challenge.

Back down the elevator to the bottom of the Shanghai World Financial Center. I had a nice latte at a coffee shop. It was now late afternoon. Some office workers, looking like office workers the world over with ID badges hanging from neck halyards, ties loosened, ordered to-go stuff to take back upstairs.

Outside I found quite a difference from 2004. At that time this area was under construction. The Jin Mao Tower and the Pearl Tower were complete, but the Shanghai World Financial Center was under construction, half as tall as the completed version, and the Shanghai Tower was not there at all. Now, in addition to these buildings and more, there was an additional mall, and a great elevated walking space. Not quite as lush as the Highline Walk in New York City, but still pretty nice, and very convenient to get people around between all these buildings, and the shopping malls, without having to cross busy streets. I don’t remember any of that walkway in 2004.

I went into two malls. One was a repeat of Singapore casino and Nanjing street. There must be buyers, else they wouldn’t make a copy of these stores just across the river from each other. It is fine that I don’t understand it. Just a drop in the ocean of my lack of understanding, tee hee. There were some more ordinary malls, which helped me to feel better about the place. After all, those office workers I saw aren’t wearing Rolex and Prada to work. I apologize to Rolex and Prada. I don’t have anything against them. I keep using them because I remember the names. Congratulations to them, they have infiltrated my brain!

I left the mall area, walked back down by the river. It isn’t developed the same as the Bund. There were condos there, some sidewalks, but the public by-the-river place is the Bund for sure. It had already gotten dark, so I had some pizza and Chianti (sacrilege! not Chinese!), very comforting I admit, and set off with my Chinese instructions, written by my agent, to find a taxi back to the docks. It was a long drive, through a long tunnel and on out of town. It is interesting how much trust we put in taxi drivers, in a foreign land, without a clue as to whether we are on the right track, and without language skills to ask any questions. It’s not scary, it just is. My taxi driver was fine, better than fine. He waited for me for many minutes as I cleared the gate security.

Bye bye to Shanghai. We will visit here again before heading east. I might try going out again, not sure. I wouldn’t just repeat this visit, I’d try to find something else to see, maybe just something around the port area. It is always fun to just walk around, if I am allowed to do so.

(Friday, February 19th, 2016)

Our Shanghai visit (late Tuesday, all day Wednesday, half-day Thursday) was an important unloading – whoops, discharging. Two huge gangways and control platforms were lifted, as well as the contents of two large holds that were under the gangways. I didn’t stay to watch – I went into Shanghai for a visit.

I’ll make a separate post about visiting Shanghai. This post, long enough on its own, is more about coming and going, both the ship logistics and the paperwork with immigration.

The approach to Shanghai seems wide but the available channel is narrow. We took on a pilot fairly early. This pilot had to cooperate with other pilots to manage the traffic jam up and down the channel, and to, of course, keep us in the channel.

One of the most visible readouts on the bridge is the distance under the keel. Leaving Ho Chi Minh City, even at high tide, we sometimes only had about 5 meters under the keel. I don’t know our depth when loaded. I’ll find out sometime later. Approaching Shanghai, we had maybe 30 meters. But I didn’t stay long on bridge after the pilot came on board. Once they get busy, I am not really welcome. Understood. I am familiar with that notion, having worked in control rooms in refineries. When anything delicate is happening, anybody who doesn’t have a reason to be there is asked politely to leave. It’s the same way on the bridge of a ship.

Docking and undocking were not that different from previous experiences except for the congestion and amount of activity. For example, when we were leaving port these things all happened pretty much at once, at the dock where we and 4 or 5 other ships were berthed:

a) Gangway up, pilot on board, ready to go, no tugboats available, and other ships were moving.
b) A ship two south of us was being pulled away from the dock by two tugboats, turned 180 degrees, sent on its way.
c) Each tugboat finished their duty on that ship, approached ours, tied on, and began tugging us away from the dock.
d) One ship across from us was pulled by one tugboat, moved to another part of the same dock, just in time to get out of the way of…
e) A larger ship that was being pushed into place (directly in our way, so we waited, our tugs at idle) at that part of the dock recently vacated, literally minutes ago, by the ship that was moved.
f) As that large ship cleared our bow our tugs finished spinning us 180 degrees and sent us on our way.
g) Both tugs scurried toward another large ship coming into view.

All in all, 4 of 5 ships were moving via tugboats at the same time, and about 6 or 8 tugboats were all active, in a fairly limited space, considering the size of the ships. In about 20 minutes 3 of us were in single file headed away, one of us was relocated, one newcomer was berthed, and another newcomer was under control of tugs. Wow. I took pictures. I will have to caption them to make sense.

Okay, that was the exquisite choreography of ships, pilots, and tugs. Actually the tugs are pretty impressive. They don’t seem to waste time or energy, getting the exact job done.

Now we come to the human part, immigration. It wasn’t that bad. It was just long. For those of us on board who had cleared Chinese immigration recently (I don’t know what “recently” meant), it was easy. They didn’t need to do anything, from what I could see. Our officer in charge of immigration paperwork worked with our agent, necessary for translating Chinese to English for the Romanian officer, and with the newly arrived on board Chinese immigration officer and Chinese quarantine officer. They went through some lists, and looked at each passport, and wrote down something on the list, and that was that.

There were maybe 10 of us in a different situation, not having cleared Chinese customs recently. We first went through a visual check, with the Chinese immigration officer. The crew had to sign on a piece of paper that was compared to their signature on their passport. That was about it for crew members.

I think that “crew” is understood, so their reason for coming to China is not suspect. “Passenger” is a little different, so I got some special treatment. I talked to two immigration officers. One was a quarantine officer. We talked a lot about where I’d recently been, for how long, how did I get there (means of travel), rural or urban, and was I a farmer. This took awhile. The quarantine officer was not great at English, and I was totally zero on Chinese, so our agent, sitting next to us working with the captain on cargo issues, had to accept our interruptions requesting help. In the end I had to write and sign a declaration that I had not recently been to South America. This was about the new Zika virus in that area. It makes sense that they are concerned. The quarantine officer had to call someone to ask about my recent small trip to northern Mexico. Luckily, all okay.

It was getting late, maybe 10pm. I was the only one leaving the ship that night, headed to a hotel in downtown Shanghai. The agent, his driver, and I got in the car and headed towards the front gate of the docks, where there was a small immigration office. The agent had a file box with all 30+ of our passports in it. The immigration official at that place did another visual check of me. Some translation difficulties… the agent said “he wants you to not smile so he can compare your passport picture.” So I not smiled, and all was okay. To be fair to the immigration guy, my passport picture doesn’t have me in a mustache and beard like now. And the agent said to me later “all you Caucasians look alike” and we had a giggle over that. An aside on the agent – totally casual, so much different than the Vietnam agent. Different personalities. He was in pretty good shape, but was wearing a sweater that said “No Abs, Still Fab”.

Then the agent said to go sit down and wait. For 45 minutes the immigration official did what I think was the same thing as was done on board, for each passport. I was asked to sign something that was written totally in Chinese, which of course I did. I wonder what it was.

Then we were free to go. I got my passport, yippee!

The agent and his driver, saying that it was sort of on their way home, took me all the way to the hotel. About 30 miles, maybe 45 minutes of driving. Major cool.

I stayed at a downtown Shanghai hotel that night, walked around Shanghai all the next day, and then headed back, after dinner, in a cab. My agent had written a note in Chinese for me to give to the cab driver. Essential!

At the gate, I started to walk through. The cab driver waited to see that all was okay. I wonder if he regretted that decision. Afterward, I tipped him well.

Anyway, I got stopped, as expected. There were three guards. There was my taxi driver. There was me. There was nobody who spoke Chinese and English in the same body. So I showed the guards many pieces of paper, including my passport with a stamp. When I finally SAID “Rickmers Shanghai” they got excited – I think it was an important clue, and I realize now that they couldn’t READ “Rickmers Shanghai” on my English (duh) paperwork.

They called the immigration office nearby, and found someone who spoke English. While I was talking with him, one of the guards kept saying “Master!”. I think either he thought I was a Master of a ship (a captain – after all, I am old and I have a grey beard), or he thought that if I told them I was the Master they’d let me through.

After one call, a 10 minute break, and another call, the guy on the phone asked me to read my passport number to him, and then said “OK!”  I handed the phone to the guy saying “Master!”, and while he was talking he was giving me the thumbs up. I paid the taxi driver and walked on in.

The three guards were always friendly, and I got the sense that they really wanted to help me get going. It was all actually kind of funny, like a slapstick comedy. I had expected it to be tougher, frankly.

(Thursday, February 18, 2016)

Admin note: I DID go back and slightly modify previous posts, even though I wrote earlier I wasn’t going to do that. Mostly just dating them correctly, but I couldn’t help but make some modifications as well. Okay, admin out of the way.

I can’t see internet reliably, daily, so I am not sure if the Rickmers’ website is up to date. But if it is, and if some of you are following along, you were probably expecting some sort of explanation by now. Here it is!

I am learning about freighter ship management. One of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of the management is remote. The “home office” (my past corporate life forces me to giggle at this point, so we’ll pause… okay) decides what cargo gets loaded and discharged where and when, and even decides how to load the various holds. Officers and seamen follow instructions from afar, and the delivery and takeaway trucks arrive according to a schedule worked out by the home office and organized by the agent we meet at the dock. The Captain is in total control of the ship, but not the business.

So, we go where they tell us to go. We discharge and load what they tell us, when, and exactly where on board. I don’t have a problem with that, really. They are making the best shipping contracts they can, and they might even have some experts who work those loading and discharge situations well.

That’s a round-about way of introducing some changes.

We have a new schedule. Remember, it’s all about cargo, and what we’re being paid to take it from somewhere to somewhere else.

Here’s a snippet of our current schedule:
— Xingang (Tianjin)
— Qingdao
— Shanghai
— Masan (South Korea)
— Yokohama
— Panama Canal, and onwards, etc.

Here’s our new schedule:
— Xingang
— West Africa
— South America

Notice the difference? Well, being the seasoned traveler I am (cough cough), and having some idea of where continents are located, I noticed. That’s three continents in three visits. Impressive! It’s probably more complicated than that, but that was what I got in an email.

While the captain was telling me about this change I was thinking fast, thinking “this is so cool, I get to go to Africa and South America by accident!” Then the bad news: No passengers on that part of the voyage. I am not allowed to go. Well, darn.

They (that would be, of course, the “home office”) made me an offer and I did not refuse it. I will disembark the Rickmers Shanghai in Xingang, spend some time there, about 10 days or so, and embark on the Rickmers Antwerp. That ship is on a similar schedule to that which was originally the schedule of the Rickmers Shanghai. Not exactly, but close. I will post the new schedule (and change the map!) when I am more sure of it.

They, and this time “they” is the agent in Xingang, not the home office, will help me find a hotel nearby. Also, they offered to upgrade my cabin from my “passenger” cabin, already quite okay, to the “owners” cabin. That’s a nicer suite, with a separate bedroom and a much larger living room. Posh – though that’s not an accurate “on board” term. They might have pictures on one of those Rickmers or Maris websites. I’ll take a photo or two when I get on board.

Xingang is, from what I understand, just a port. I hope nobody from Xingang reads this and feels offended – ports are great! Xingang is near Tianjin. Tianjin is the third-largest city in China (after Beijing and Shanghai), and is one of only four “municipalities” (a special thing, bigger than city, smaller than province), along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing (central China, on the Yangtze). So Tianjin has a long history, museums and parks, etc. etc., and should be fun to visit. It is, as I understand, linked to Beijing via a fast train, so that might be fun as well. I will write about it.

I expect to have wifi at the hotel of course, but it might come with the same guidance that helped me in Shanghai. See “Communication Breakdown”. We’ll see. I will have some more time, so I might post some small selection of pictures via the regular blog technique. No promises – I really don’t know what I’m getting into.

I’ve been on this ship for about three weeks give or take, and have made some new friends. The word is getting out that I’m leaving. I’ll be sad to leave many of them. They have been good to me. That’s the way it goes. It will happen fast – after today we only have one full day then a half day of sailing to get to Xingang.

So all is well but changed, that’s all.

I should have tried to learn to do something useful on board in my first few weeks. Then, as my fantasy continues, I would have been able to stay on board as crew. That “learn to do something useful” is a pretty interesting concept, eh? I’d need a beer or two to write more about that.

(Wednesday, February 17th, 2016)

I just thought that I would put that song in your head. Everybody needs a little Zep once and again.

I am in a nice hotel in Shanghai that my family stayed in more than 10 years ago. Fun! I will be walking a bit tomorrow and will likely take a few pictures. It will be interesting for me to see how many 2004 pictures I retake in 2016. There’s a really tall building across from the Bund (I’ll write about that later) that was under construction last time, and now is complete. World’s almost tallest (I don’t know the number, just know that it isn’t number one). Of course they don’t call it that. I hope to go up it.

And I have internet. But. I seem to be able to get to Yahoo, like Yahoo Mail, but not Google, or GMail. And I am able to get to WordPress and post some blog posts, but my Dropbox is stuck on “connecting”, and hasn’t been successful yet. Hmmm.

So I think that my internet choices are receiving some extra guidance here. It’s 1am and I am not going to push the hotel staff to explain. I might try a Starbucks tomorrow but I have low expectations.

In the meanwhile, darn. I posted a few posts, as you no doubt already saw, but I am currently thwarted at uploading the pics that go with them. Oh well. We are making four stops overall in China before we head to other places. In a couple of weeks or so we’ll be in Korea and Japan. Might just have to wait ’till then.

—– Addendum (February 21, 2016) —–

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote above. I have a VERY limited and expensive satellite capability on the ship (tied to a South Korea ISP). I used some of that precious capability to look up a couple things about China and internet blockage. The Great Firewall of China. Ha!

It’s a lesson for me, and I am writing about it in case it is a lesson for others. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Our world has too much going on for us to be able to “go deep” on everything. We skim. It is happening “way over there”, and so we go on to skim the next thing. That’s normal. We aren’t expected to consume everything. We wait ’till it makes the headlines again, then think about it again.

There is a danger there, eh? We passively accept situations that we shouldn’t just accept. Example: My Romanian friends are wondering why we in the US don’t think Crimea is important anymore. With this note I just wanted to renew that awareness of our skimming. I have no solution, I am way not smart enough for that. I just thought I’d spew while I was thinking about it – in response to something that just happened to occur “right here” for me.

(Sunday, February 14th, 2016) Happy Valentine’s Day!

Maps are always fun, so I drew my path on a world map I could bring into an editor. Look for it in “Raw Photos” > “– A Progress Map”.

I intend to keep up the “past” and “future” markings, and change ports as they get added and subtracted. For you readers “past” and “future” are relative to the last time I had a chance to use good wifi in a port. Obviously, they might be shy of real progress at any particular point in time.

The Third Mate dropped by while I had the map up on my screen. He said that this is a perfectly accurate map, and that they intend to use it for their navigation. Not.

Enjoy!

(Thursday, February 11th, 2016)

A language correction – I’ve been meaning to correct this but decided I would not go back to edit old posts, too much energy and it sets a precedent I don’t want to maintain.

But, this is fairly important, so worth a mini-post. I heard some words that I understood in Russian, so I assumed Russian. And I had heard that many crew for freighters are Croatian, so I assumed that what I couldn’t understand at all was Croatian.

Both wrong.

The officers, senior and junior but one, are Romanian. It is Romanian they are speaking. One junior officer is Filipino. The seamen are Filipino. Everybody speaks English well.

Anyway, as I got to know some of the officers, and after a beer or so, I told them that I understood some Russian words and thought at first they were Russian. They had a good chuckle over that. They are not Putin fans, let’s just leave it at that. They said that the Russian that I heard was probably that same sort of thing as when somebody speaking English says something like “Muchas Gracias”, or “Sie Vous Plais”, confusing the non-English listener. They said that there are some useful Russian idioms that they use, but no, and they chuckled again, they aren’t Russian.

I asked what the Russian idioms meant. They said no, we’re not going there. Chuckled again. I’ll be on this ship for awhile, so maybe later I’ll ask again.