Final hours in Shanghai!

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The week had honestly worn me out, but I wasn’t about to sleep in my last morning, so by 7 I was up and at the gym before breakfast and meeting coworkers in the lobby for a whirlwind 4 more hours. One of my colleagues from the Beijing office happened to be in Shanghai for the weekend and was staying at the same hotel, so he joined us at well. The plan was basically to see People’s Square and then do some shopping and eating, but I deferred to my hosts for a more solid game plan. I hadn’t taken the metro yet, so this was my final golden opportunity to check it out. It’s known to be clean, efficient, etc. so just like every other public transit system in the world it’s the antithesis to Boston’s. For 3 RMB, 46 cents, I was able to go 4 stops across the river to People’s Square – worked for me. It was indeed clean and efficient and had signage/announcements in both Chinese and English so realistically I’d have been ok on my own. In maybe 10 minutes we were across the river and in People’s Square, which, as one might guess, is a large public square with Shanghai’s city hall, a public park and various other buildings.

The most interesting part of the park/square was the Lover’s Area, where Chinese parents literally pimp out their children via setting out umbrellas with a description of their child attached. Height, weight, salary, education, a picture, and more are advertised, and in mingling amongst one another they try to set up their children. Only slightly awkward! I couldn’t find a Chinese wife that suited me, so we moved on toward East Nanjing Road, one of the city’s major shopping streets. The city’s first department stores opened up here in the 20s, and while it’s since become more of a thing for out-of-towners, it’s still a shopping hub with major International and local brands having set up shop. First stop was a stall serving these green glutinous rice cakes filled with red bean paste, apparently the traditional snack of the Tomb Sweeping Festival that was going on the Monday I arrived. It was hot and fresh out the kitchen, had every man in there wishin’, etc. Quite good. I next hit up a food mart with everything you could imagine – the best part was of course the smoke meats and animal parts – duck tongues and feet, tripe, dried Chinese sausage, etc. I wish I could just bring a box of all this stuff home – I’ll need to be bolder in Chinatown back home. I considered getting some tea, but given I’m not a tea connoisseur and wasn’t about to spend $100 on some random tea that I could likely buy in Chinatown back home, I passed.

From here we continued on toward the Yuyuan Gardens and Tourist mart, the area I’d visited a week prior after landing. I was hoping to find something to bring back that wasn’t a Danish t-shirt or potato chips, and this was the place to go for souvenirs, from more legitimate handcrafts to complete pieces of garbage for 50 cents. It was a total sh*tshow given it was a Sunday, but we did our best to weave through the crowds so I could pick up some things. The first place that caught my eye was the Shanghai Chopsticks store, which had beautiful sets of chopsticks of varying designs. I wanted a bigger set for 6 people, but I couldn’t pick a design so I got 3 separate sets of 2 – TBD if I keep them all for myself. Something else I had hoped to pick up was a freshwater pearl. Shanghai isn’t known as the Pearl of the Orient for nothing, and while you can spend a ton on top qualify saltwater pearls, some really reasonably priced and beautiful freshwater pearls were abundant. Attendants were all eager to prove that the pearls weren’t fake via a scratch test, so hopefully what I picked up was legitimate. My friend from chorus who had lived in Shanghai for 11 years recommended me a place, but the two numbers I had were both incorrect and despite having the address we were unable to find the shopkeeper and I had to settle for somewhere else.

Tea sets were also abundant, but they were a bit on the pricier side, I didn’t have much room left in my suitcase, and I don’t even like tea all that much so I decided to forego that purchase. I more realistically could have bought a tea thermos, as people all over the city – in my office, at the airport, on the street, etc. - carried around thermoses with loose leaf tea in them. Again, apparently hot drinks are always appropriate even though it was 70 degrees out. I did end up with some tea, though, a lavender jasmine variety and some kind of dragon green tea, plus the assorted flowery teas I had picked up the day before. Last on my list for the YuYuan Gardens, besides the bird and insect market which will unfortunately have to wait until next time, was grilled squid on a stick. It was a touch call between deep fried crab legs, whole roasted quail, and the squid, but I was happy with my choice. For about $3 I had a big whole squid sprinkled with probably MSG to nibble on. My work there was done.

Some 20 minutes later I was in an uber back to the hotel to pick up my bags before the long trek back to Boston via Newark. From leaving the hotel at 12:45pm Sunday Shanghai time and landing 11:45pm Sunday Boston time the whole trip took around 23 hours. Oh what fun! Hadn’t traveled for quite so long since I was 14 and flying to Sydney from Chicago. I’d managed to survive 7 full-ish days in China without any food-born illness or getting run over by a scooter on the street, so I’d say it was a success. ‘Twas all in all an amazing trip, and with my 10-year visa I’m sure to be back sooner rather than later! 再见！

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