http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , China , Shanghai , Jing An en-us Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:28:08 BST Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:28:08 BST As Jill mentioned before we went to Shanghai for four days. It was a Chinese national holiday and somewhere I heard O'malley's Irish Pub that there were around 480 million Chinese traveling that day. I don't know how true that was but out of the normal 20 million people that live in Shanghai I think there might have been an extra 100 million more people. I have never nor do I ever want to tra http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-333524.html Shangahi yay funWow the national holidays are fun filled and people filled...Shanghai made it onto the national news just due to the sheer number of people a trad Chinese proverb kinda thing oh no not quoting chinese proverbs already goes 20154236652015428023 ren shan ren hai literally mountains and seas of people..didn't we just chose the best time to go to Shanghai It wa http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-331017.html Shanghai seems like a place that's designed to amaze. The tallest buildings the fastest trains the biggest shopping malls the biggest port. It's what I imagine Dubai to be like. We took a trip here on the Hangpu river which gave us fantastic views of the Pudong district skyline. Shanghai has a huge shipbuilding industry and you can see massive oil tankers and container ships in various states o http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-328524.html We have had quite the busy weekend. The weather has been great. Cooler and sunny with clear blue skies. Friday after school I treated myself to a pedicure. I went back to a place I had been to the month before across the street. I remember feeling very nervous and uncomfortable being totally unable to communicate besides pointing and miming my way through. This time I had a very different expe http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-328475.html Also wo soll ich blo zum erzhlen anfangen Hatte einen angenehmen Flug von Wien nach Peking. Von Peking nach Shanghai flog ich mit China Eastern Airlines. Da habe ich zum ersten Mal realisiert dass hier alles ein bisschen anders abluft. Also zuerst einmal stellen sich die Leute schon ca. 15 min vorm Boarding beim Gate an obwohl noch kein Staff dort war. Naja und dann sind wir mit einem Bus http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-307429.html . http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-304928.html First off let me say that I miss you all dearly on my birthday...I wish you could be here with me celebrating But since I'm nowhere near wealthy enough to fly you out to China for the weekend I'll share with you all the crazy twists and turns of my birthday weekend. The festivities basically started on Friday. Getting off of work that night at 6 was the most incredible experience...and my bos http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-288273.html This past weekend Lu and I made a discovery we like event planning. This isn't to say we're going to major in it but we've taken quite the interest in planning out sightseeing activities and birthday parties. We have quite a few birthdays to celebrate with one celebrated this past weekend and another today Lynn's last week and Evan's now. The work week last week was the longest week of http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-287926.html Nee hao So I'm at my cubicle at the GreenTree right now We just went through 3 hours of training oy vey and then had a lunch break and then 1.5 more hours of training. The most exciting thing all day has been the acquisition of our very own GreenTree binders which is going to make this experience far more official than we thought. Actually this has become less of an internship and more http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-283515.html So here we are once again back in Shanghai. We had an amazing time seeing the TerraCotta warriors in Xi'an China. We were in Xi'an on Monday. It turned out that we got a really good deal on plane tickets so we were really happy. The only downfall was that Giles and I both came down with a coldflu the day before we left. We were lucky though because it only really affected us on Monday and di http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-260487.html Urgh I have so much to catch up on and I really cannot be bothered writting about it all. It has been two weeks since I last wrote a blog so I am going to start at the weekend before last. This was the weekend when I first discovered the fabulous fabric market having since clocked up my third visit which considering it shuts at the same time I finish work is pretty impressive. The fabric mar http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-259124.html For those of you who have not been able to have the experience of taking a 10 hour overnight train ride let me tell you. It's quite the experience. Our adventure started as we were dropped off at the train station by our speedy taxi driver. I would like you to make a note at this point and mention that the words speedy and safe are not used in the same sentence when referring to a taxi driver. G http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-258486.html Hello AllWell 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 http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-257518.html Our national guide has taken the English name of Snow. He comes from the south of China where there is not snow. He figured the name would make him stand out ane be cool. Nick is our city guide. He is from Suzhou. I think I butchered the pronunciation of his home town probably akin to turning Kanata into Kapiskasing.At the Jing An temple I watched everyone else and then bought incen http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-257168.html I spent most of the plane ride practicing Where is the toilet and I need to vomit. Stop Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting. My seatmate Teri was from Hong Kong though she now lives in Vancouver and goes to Shanghai for business computer games quite often.6 Y 7 L 8 R 9 X for the sign language junkies these are the signs for some numbers.The airport had an underlying lingering perv http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-256841.html Last week I had my first taste of dog meat. It had the texture of tender beef but tasted a little but like chicken... I'm guessing it was labrador or golden retriever judging by the thick blonde hair that I found in my food. No I tell a lie. I am still to savor the Chinese delicacy that is dog meat. However I did have my first encounter with the stuff on a menu while I was out for lunch on my br http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-256003.html This weekend another girl called Anna who is going to be teaching through the same company that has organized my stay in Shanghai arrived at the flat of doom . I failed to mention that on the Friday night I had met up and gone to see some bands with Alex another guy doing the same as Anna. I think it's important to explain who they are now because I will probably be mentioning them quite a lot. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-250163.html During last week I found myself with a lot of time to spare having not yet started work and only doing a two hour mandarin course on most afternoons. I decided to join the masses and get myself a bike. This may sound a bit extravagant but in China you can pick one up for next to nothing. After a trip to the Carrefour next to my apartment I set off to find Jing'an temple on my newly purchased te http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-250136.html I've been a busy bee over the last weekFirstly I decided to move out of the filthy falling apart apartment. After emailing numerous adverts online and visiting one apartment I found the best place into which I could move straight away. So I moved in the next morning and emailed the company who organized my placement here and told them that I wasn't going to wait for them to clean the place be http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-249839.html GreetingsSo I am now living in an apartment right in the middle of one of the busiest streets for 'night life'. On first impressions I almost died no really upon setting foot into my new accommodation mainly as it had not been cleaned at all so was covered in clutter belonging to the previous guest including one tube of Vagisil nice. I am glad to say I have now got over this and am trying t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-247150.html Hello I have made it to Shanghai Woop dee do. After sad goodbyes on Wednesday morning at Edinburgh airport I set off for my connecting flight to Heathrow. What would have been a one hour flight turned into two and I was stuck on the plane for an hour before take off. With only twenty minutes until my flight to Shanghai I was whisked through the airport via mini van sans customs to just make http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-246500.html Where should I begin Much has happened since leaving the States last week. I arrived in Shanghai following my 14 hour flight ordeal to find that my luggage did not arrive with me despite repeated assurances from the airlines that this would not be the case. Bummed out but determined not to let my China experience start on a negative note I put the luggage out of my mind telling myself that it http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-246290.html While Wen Jiabao the Chinese Premier flies around the country pointing at maps asking the 'people' to dig his governement out of a huge pickle millions of people are stranded at bus stations train stations and airports. TWO BILLION FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY MILLION JOURNEYS are being attempted in what is the busiest time of the Chinese year. To put it bluntly but not so bluntly as to drive my http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-241613.html Ask about the Shanghai's dating scene and the answer solely depends on whether you ask a guy or a girl. For ONCE for one beautiful shining moment in time and space the stars have aligned in cosmic proportion to finally grant us guys the upper hand to meet girls With a virtually inexhaustible supply of beautiful Chinese girls to pick and choose from the ratio couldn't be better for the lessfa http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-235408.html Construction everywhere in Shanghai. Displaced people the old folks usually living on the edge of rubble yards that used to be their lowrise apt. blocks. Sunday on my morning walk I saw masses of peasantmigrant men crouched in a line waiting for possible work at a construction project. Huge migration from the countryside to the jobs the construction boom is fueling. Workers live in hasti http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-233345.html It's not because there are no new blog entries that we've stop to travel. Over December it was twice for along day trip to Hong Kong evening in Bangkok as well as weekend in Saigon...just to keep us busy.But it was a lot more of Shanghai. Time to celebrate Christmas at Leslie school time to celebrate my 34thbirthday. The best one for years...easy to do it compare to last year...the party last http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/Jing-An/blog-231069.html