It's crazy how quickly I've lost my ability to be an efficient solo traveler.
It's Tuesday night in Shanghai as the stars begin to peek out through the glow of city lights and between the nomadic clouds above me. I'm on the rooftop veranda of my hostel, giving my legs a break after an entire day of being mobile, carrying my bags with me as I tried to sort out where, exactly, my hostel was. I arrived yesterday (Monday) and have already spent a night in the steel expanses of this town, but since I had to change hostel locales I was on the move again, attempting to get by on the mediocre directions I typed up for myself from the establishment's website.
Being absent-minded this morning as I was getting ready (and being seriously consumed by my desirous thoughts about coffee since by about 11am I hadn't yet ingested my requisite two cups of java) I copied the address in my email inbox in both English and Chinese and didn't transpose this information into a non-wifi accessible place like my IPod's notepad. Nope… I punched in the "turn here, follow this road" directions up until the final sentence which proved to be the most important of them all (but that shouldn't be a surprise… isn't the ending always the most important thing??). And I also neglected to put down the actual street address. And the telephone number. I'm an idiot.
Anyhoo, I called a friend who was stuck being bored in Dalian for the week and she was able to provide me with an address. And a phone number. So since I've developed the highly important skill of being able to follow street signs, I thought I was on my way. Except that, at the location provided by said friend, I was at a loss as to where the building was. It didn't exist on that street. So I tried calling the number… and I realized that she'd shorted me on two digits. And this whole time I was seeking out a Starbucks or McDonalds in order to help my bid to find my new home. And nothing.
Finally, after roaming altogether for about an hour, I found a small Taiwanese-style restaurant with free Wifi and sat down. I was getting pretty huangry, too (no, that's not a typo… Huangry is when you're getting angry because of hunger). I thanked the stars above for shining their lights on Cloud 9 restaurant (which was, in fact, pretty mediocre, but did the trick in a pinch). After loading up the website, I realized that "only-semi-reliable-but-good-natured friend" gave me an inaccurate address (she'd switched the building number and the street numbers… when I called her, I was actually in rock-throwing distance from the alley I needed to enter).
I arrived without any problems after this and got on with the planning for the rest of the trip. I got some caffeine in me, met some friendly travelers in the cafe, and began hiking around the city in search of one of my favourite Shanghai restaurants (Vietnamese place called "Pho Real!") as well as a massage place which will rescue my hurting feet and legs in coming days. Then, it was off to the markets, off to take some random city photos and have an amazing solo dinner at another dining favourite, "Element Fresh". Indulgence is the only word (and although there's a pricetag associated with it, I'm not gonna complain).
So for now, I'm going to indulge more in this stunning cityscape and in the prose of my new book and sign off from here.
T
