上海 Xing Qi Er

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On the second day of Shanghai the weather gave to me,

All day of rain!
Then it rained the next day,
and the next,
and the next,
and it rained till we left on Sunday.

I really liked the rain. We walked in the rain until we decided to get in a taxi. We gave him a destination but our real plan was to stop him when he came to a McDonalds. Which is what we did. But of course, we got there and asked for "zao-fan", breakfast, and a lady laughed at us, pointed to a clock and said "It's eleven o'clock!"

So we got food anyways and ate by the window, watching the rain. We then got out and walked in it some more down a back alley, to see the "real" Shanghai. We bought some umbrellas off a vendor and walked to Old Town. Old Town in Shanghai is a small city of traditional style, red chinese buildings, (tea houses, restaurants, shops) dedicated to tourists and the soaking up of all their yuan. We stopped in a Starbucks before going into the Yu Gardens. I notice that we were being very American that day. But I thought Starbucks was worth mentioning because the inside was toasty warm, decorated for Christmas, and with my Gingerbread latte, I felt like I was in heaven.

The Yu Garden was beautiful and the weather couldn't have made it even more so. We spent a lot of time wandering through it.

Kaffy knew a friend in Shanghai that we had met up with for dinner the night before, and he's the one, I believe, that directed us to a Chinese family that used to live in Vienna, Missouri. We left Yu Gardens to look for the subway to meet them. I asked for directions several times, and I thought I knew where we were going, but we walked around a good part of downtown before we finally found a subway. Once we found it though, it was very easy to get around. We only met the lady of the family 15 minutes later than the time she had set. She was very sweet and took us up to a Juice bar and bought us a juice drink and fruit. Kiwi drinks are...okay, but I almost died by choking on the seeds.

Then we met her husband and they took us to dinner at a beautiful Japanese restaurant overlooking Shanghai. We had a lot of things to talk about and they were a very very nice couple. Next, they took us to an electronics store to show us around in case we wanted to buy any. Most Chinese think Americans are always looking to spend money. But I'm so glad they took us there. It made me realize how much more advanced of a city Shanghai is, compared to the rest of China, and even some of America. They had all kinds of electronics, even this 3D television that looked really cool, but hurt your eyes. But there are televisions everywhere in Shanghai. They are in taxis, boats, elevators...

Anyways, we looked around some more and then took a taxi back. We didn't realize how far we were from our hotel or we would have tried to take the subway again. Cause we're so good at it.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! Missed you. Call us Your pa and ma