Blogs from Putuo, Shanghai, China, Asia

Our trip to Shanghai started with a delay which is so expected at this point that it almost seems like if the delay is less than a few hours, we are actually on time! We had some issues with towing the a/c from our hangar to the departure area, but we made it in time (thanks to the delay) and had a nice flight to Shanghai. We essentially had to do an instrument approach because of the amount of smog and pollution. We couldn’t see the runway until a little over a mile out! We landed, got the plane cleaned up, got a ride to our hotel, had a quick dinner and then hit the hay. The next morning I was up early and decided to let the Concierge at the hotel help me come up ... read more

After my first two weeks of classes (sorry for being an infrequent blogger...), I truly miss orientation week and realize how little I treasured it beforehand. This program has turned out to be much more difficult than I had originally anticipated. My schedule requires me to attend Chinese class 10am-12pm Monday through Thursday in addition to 3 other classes that meet for 3 hours once a week. I find myself spending between 3-6 hours on just my Chinese homework every night, leaving little or no time to do anything else after class other than get food. Each class begins with a quiz on 20-30 vocab words, characters, pinyin, and meaning. Each week we have a test on the 2 chapters that we learned the past 4 classes. Luckily for me, my Laoshi has chosen to hold ... read more

After a super efficient flight from Hanoi to Shanghai with a quick change in Guangzhou and sneaking through the "special queue" at immigration, we arrived at our lovely hostel - unbelievably our first hostel on this trip. We decided to settle here for a week and packed an awful lot in! With Shanghai being so westernised, we took advantage of the huge shopping malls to buy new clothes, drink Starbucks, eat delicious Sushi and see Kung Fu Panda 2 (where better to see it than China really?!) Our hostel was conveniently located next to a huge Carrefour so we made many trips here to pick up pots of noodles and get excited by food we recognised. Just like being back in Lille....only with a slightly Chinese slant! After purchasing such pretty clothes, shoes, bags etc, we ... read more

I moved to another hostel in Shanghai which was a whopping great 40p dearer than the first place I stayed and it was fantastic. The building was spotless; the staff were so friendly and helpful and it also had a bar that served both eastern and western food and all sorts of snacks. The place had a yuppie vibe with long couches and deep leather couches forming a square I the centre, low lighting and great music. We went into Shanghai bus station to organise tickets to Tunxi, a town that would be our base for climbing the mountain then spent the day wandering around the Bund seeing it from different angles, later on I wanted to get a view from one of the towers but most days the smog cloud destroys any decent chance of ... read more