We are in Shanghai!!

Hello All,

Well, we finally made it to Shanghai!! Here we are! Yup... As we stepped off the airplane onto this new land, we thought to ourselves: "Hmmmm, it looks baren. We must civilize!" After a quick nap on the bus, we were soon to realize that this place was, in fact , quite modern. It wasn't made up of naked people and caves like we had first thought.

Actually, Shanghai is quite modern and very clean. We are staying in an amaizing apartment that puts our apartment in Korea to shame. We are living with Phil (from Newzealand), his girlfriend Mia (from China), and their friend Li (he grew up in Newzeland, but is Irish and Chinese). (For Steve, yes it is the same Phil from SLP.)

Since being here we have had the luxury of indulging ourselves with the most amaizing food. We went to a Quing Dynasty restaurant on the first night. We had Peking duck, candied bananas, mushroom with celery, mushroom with bamboo, soft tofu in an orange/chilli sauce, fried tofu with bokchoy, and if that doesn't get your mouth watering enough, we also had lotus flower with white fish. Everything cost us a whopping 10$ each. I love it. The next night we went for Xin Jing food. This food originates from where China meets with all the -stan countries (Kazikstan, Ubekistan...) so the menu is Muslim. This means that there is no pork in any of the food. The people from this area are one of 56 minorities in China. As much as we love the swine, we decided to indulge ourselves with the most delicious mutton, lamb, and beef dishes. There were song and dance performances throughout the evening that were quite impressive as well. Wait until you see Sonja performing along with them. It was really an experience.

Our sightseeing has been limited. Yesterday we spent much of our time walking and getting familiar with our surroundings. We walked to the People's garden, People's square and then to the Nanning walking Market (A high end shopping area). After, we took the subway to Lu Jia Zui station, where we saw China's tallest building, or so we thought. It was overcast, so what we thought was the tallest building was not. Oops. We will have to get back there. We plan to take a river tour and get a better view of the buildings.Yay! Nothing like tall...

Tonight, we are going to jump on an over night train to Yellow Mountain. We got a tour package. Our tour includes a train ride to the mountain, then a bus ride, and a three to four hour hike to a hotel located at the top of the mountain. Think there is a gondola ride in there at some point too. It is sure to be an experience.

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