Shanghai Tunnels

This weekend I finally made it to the underground Shanghai tunnels of Portland. And although I agree with the general sentiments of the people I went with that we were hoping for a little more, it was still pretty cool. The tunnels were built underneath businesses in Portland's Old Town/Chinatown/North End (he explained the difference, I forget what it is) so that they could transport good to the ports and avoid the muddy stumpy late 1800's streets. Soon, they took on a more nefarious use- shanghaing. Shanghaing consisted of grabbing some local derelict at a place of sin (saloons, opium dens, whorehouses) locking them into a holding cell, and then selling them to a sea captain who needed cheap labor. Before the voyage they would give them some type of an opiate and when the shanghaiee awoke, they were in the middle of the Pacific stuck for about the next 3 years. This was extremely popular in Portland; according to the tour guide we were the #1 spot in the country for it.
The tour itself was pretty good. The guide was certainly knowledgable, in a crazy obsessed sort of way. He told a lot of ghost stories which were mostly lame attempts to scare us, but also slightly worked since it is kind of creepy walking around in the underground dark. My favorite part was when he showed us a trap door that was used by the bar to drop drinkers into the underground for a quick Shanghai. The most disappointing part was that I think we were under the same bar the whole time, so the idea of it being an "underground" versus a "basement" was hard to fathom. Overall, it was worth it, but it felt like it could have been potentially awesome;: more traveling, less supernaturality, and more history would have made it great.