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Published: September 22nd 2011
Well, I made it back in one piece, and have a new love for Shanghai. We left Friday afternoon to take an hour long bus ride to the train station, then boarded the bullet train. I was the only one that had any misgivings about the train, but everything (obviously) went smoothly—literally. That train moves so easily! I’ve never been on a train, but I have ridden the subway and I can imagine being jostled around a little bit. But the bullet train is so smooth; I didn’t even feel when we made a stop on the way. I thought we were still moving until Kelsey said something about a person walking by. I looked up, and we were parked. We got up to 296 kilometers per hour (183 miles per hour) and arrived in less than an hour. We took the subway to our hotel, and I learned that there are clean subways. I’ve been in the New York subways, but these were nowhere near the dirtiness and grunge there. Everything was bright, new, and spacious. We got checked into our hotel, Motel 168, which is a building with one hundred years of history. It’s a cute place with a
rooftop courtyard right outside Carey’s and my room. There is an odd thing about our room though. When you walk in the door, the bathroom is to the right and then our beds are behind the bathroom wall. The shower is on the other side of that wall, and there is a window into it from the room. We can look into it and see with perfect clarity. This seemed a little odd to us, and we had to make sure the one not showering was not in a position to observe.
After we had dropped off our bags we met to go walking along the Bund. This is an area of street along the Huangpu River that contains several old buildings on one side and across the river is the skyline that you usually see in postcards of Shanghai with the pearl tower. The Bund used to be part of the International Settlement and was full of foreign banks and clubs, each with its distinct architectural design. There is German, Dutch, British, French, and Russian style architecture, and it looks phenomenal at night with all the lights. It’s a cool contrast seeing the buildings from the late 19th and
early 20th centuries on one side of the river and all the modern skyscrapers on the other side. The walkway was so crowded with people too. This is one of the biggest tourist spots in Shanghai, and everyone seemed to be there. After this, we walked to Nanjing Road which is the main shopping street in the city, and one of the busiest shopping streets in the world. Needless to say, there was a lot to look at. Several people were walking around trying to sell little trinkets and would get in your face to get you to buy one. I was getting annoyed, because they kept coming to our group; apparently we look like we would buy useless junk. There was a concert going on, a promotional thing for Canon with dancing and really cool digital effects, and little performances in the street (it’s a pedestrian street) with people dancing or singing old Red songs. This was interesting to see: an older man had a big paper book with the lyrics to the songs, and people just gathered around and sang the old songs, Miss Li even joined in, having grown up learning them. We looked around for a
while, then went back to the hotel.
Early Saturday morning saw us on the way to a famous restaurant for breakfast. We were going early because later in the day, the line can get to be a few hours long. The food was a kind of dumpling, and it was really good, but it didn’t feel like a real breakfast to me, so I got a muffin at Starbucks while others got a coffee wake-me-up. Then we went to Yuyuan garden, an old estate similar to the Hu Xueyan house Carey and I went to, but on a much larger scale. We saw another Cheng Huang Miao (Daoist temple) then Miss Li set us loose in the markets for a little bargaining and shopping. I must admit, my first time bargaining was a failure. I bought a fan for 160 kuai when it shouldn’t have been over 100. I also bought a silk dress for 250 when it should have been about 150. I did at least get half of their initial asking price, so it wasn’t a total disaster, but I realized I’m not firm enough. I was too soft about bargaining and they took advantage of that. For
my second dress, Carey helped me out a lot. She was a lot better at bargaining, having got a similar dress for 135 kuai. It was helpful that we could talk in Spanish about what to bid without the saleslady understanding us. We got to turn the tables on them for when they discussed fooling the white girls into a higher price. So this dress I got for 85 kuai, and I figured I would stop while I was ahead. Later when I tried on the dresses, neither of them fit, so I just wasted $50 today. Well, my first two lessons were learned early: be firm and don’t buy unless I try it on.
We met after an hour for lunch at a popular Shanghai restaurant, and I really enjoyed it. And this time there were more vegetables, even broccoli! Another surprise was that I was happy about it. I’m really getting a taste for Chinese cuisine, but I don’t crave it like I do American food. After this, we went to the Shanghai history museum. This one was even bigger than the museum in Hangzhou. I’m proud to say that I saw every exhibit in the museum; the
others gave up after awhile and spent most of the three hours sitting and watching people walk around. Some exhibits were more interesting than others, like the Chinese painting room. I have decided that I love Chinese artwork. It’s all of nature and every scene is breathtaking. I enjoyed the first few pieces in the pottery collection, but there are only so many pots I can look at without it getting repetitive. There was also a temporary exhibit on the Maoris (natives of New Zealand) which had some interesting things. The nice thing about this museum—and everywhere else in Shanghai—the signs are in both Chinese characters and English, so I could read about the culture and explanations of the artifacts.
We were supposed to meet Miss Li in the lobby at 4:30 to go back to the hotel, but everyone was done with the museum and sitting outside when I found them. We had a little confusion because they stopped letting people into the museum at 4:00, so we couldn’t go back in to meet Miss Li. To add to this, her phone had died, so we had no way of contacting her. We waited for 45 minutes without seeing
her then headed back to the hotel ourselves. Later we found out she had been waiting at the exit on the other side of the museum for us, and then gave up after a half hour. After taking a nap, Carey, Justin, and I went back out to Nanjing Road. We saw a Subway the night before and planned on eating dinner there. It was delicious! Delis are not to be found anywhere in China, except for Subway, so it was wonderful to eat a cold sandwich. We then walked around for awhile and found a shoe store. I was really excited at first because it was huge! But I quickly became discouraged because they only carried up to a size seven. My hopes of buying cheap shoes here are gone with my size 9 ½ feet. Depressed, we left the shoe store and saw a wedding dress shop. I remembered my mom telling me to see if I could find a dress here since it would be cheaper and just bring it back with me so I would have it ready someday. Well, I decided to go in, not really expecting much. Justin was my “fiance” and Carey a
bridesmaid and I got to try on five dresses. The first ones did not fit at all since the sizes are so small, but the last one fit perfectly! It was really pretty too. The salesladies were sad we didn’t buy that night (they actually believed us by the end of it!), but Justin asked for the lady’s card in case we came back.
We were all pretty pleased with ourselves as we left the store and came to a massage parlor. A sign said 58 kuai ($10) for a 60 minute foot massage, so we went in. They put us in a room with four reclining chairs and got us some hot tea to help us relax. After walking all day, that massage felt amazing! It was difficult to keep from laughing sometimes as they hit a ticklish spot like rubbing between our toes. When we got up to pay, our bill was somehow 150 kuai. Thinking back, we realized they charged for the tea, foot scrape, and oil. Either way, it was worth the $25.
Sunday was an early day again. It finally cooled off, and was the perfect temperature for fall. The sky was clear and blue,
which has only happened once so far. We went to the science and technology museum, spending four hours exploring. We saw an IMAX 3D movie about prehistoric sea monsters, experienced an earthquake, and competed with a robot in archery (we lost). We met for lunch, then headed to the aquarium. It was pretty cool, but I was getting so annoyed by all the little kids running around and screaming that it kind of ruined the experience. By then it was time to head back, so we went to the train station and boarded the bullet train for the return trip. I wasn’t as nervous this time around, and the trip seemed to take no time at all. After this weekend, I’m dreading the busy week ahead—it wasn’t a very restful trip, and I’m already so tired. Hopefully I can stay awake through all my classes.
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Jas
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Shanghai looks like a beautiful city! I love all of the lights at night!