So we survived and enjoyed 3 nights in an authentic Chinese community at the lovely apartment. Now it was time to journey two hours north to Jiangyin, where the shipyard is located. The agent sent a driver to pick us up at the end of our alley. We bid farewell to the “USA teacher, wonderful, beautiful"and were off The man never said one word to us and as soon as the traffic cleared up enough for him to drive like a maniac, he did so. A word here about the drivers we have encountered so far… all insane!! No that’s not fair, only those who drive for a living, the taxi, limo and bus drivers. I believe when you go for a test as one of these professionals, you only pass when you demonstrate the ability to weave through traffic at 75 miles an hour, beep your horn incessantly for no apparent reason, and talk on the phone in Chinese. On one bus ride, I had to stop myself from walking up to the driver and slapping him on the head. He lay on the horn continuously for seven stops. - But it did only cost15 cents, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
When we got to the loveliest Sheraton I have ever seen, I was quite happy. We’re all for authentic, live-like-the- native travel, but an olympic size pool, sauna and spa trumps those noble thoughts in roughly 1.2 seconds.
Ahhh home sweet home for the next 2 weeks!
We were invited to dinner by Robert, the shipyard go-between in charge of making the customers happy, a really nice, sweet guy with good English, and Ding, his boss, also very nice. They had just been in Boston for a short time and when they had 3 hours to wait for a plane they took the T to Harvard and MIT.! Wouldn’t you just go the the Black Rose?
Robert did the ordering of the various dishes - sushi, fish, crabs, vegetables, etc. Apparently these “hairy crabs” are all the rage at this time of year and although they were fine, crabs are crabs - too much work for too little reward. I’m done with them unless they are from Alaska or a can.
The fish was called “bubble fish” which was good. After we ate it Svend said, “At first I thought you said “Blowfish, like those poisonous ones in Japan” yes of course, that’s what they were. Apparently not that many people do really die when they eat them and we didn’t die either, so that was good. All and all the food and the company was quite good.
One bummer is that they had to change which shipyard was going to be used and the new one is at least a half hour away by bus instead of ten minutes. When Svend said it was OK, we had to do what was best for the ship, Robert said, “But ships don’t have feeling, people do” I thought, how cute was that? (and P.S. - no way I’m leaving that Sheraton to move closer to the new shipyard!)
It was arranged that Robert was going to take up to a famous tourist place about an hour away. The next day and would be at our hotel at 7:30 AM so we could get there early so as not to miss the entertainment! What kind of entertainment do they have at 8:30 AM???? But from the outside, one would never have guessed at my inner thoughts. Yes, thank you, see you at 7:30 AM!!
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