Bright Lights, Big City

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Day One:

Shanghai is a city of almost 20 million people! So, on our bus ride into Shanghai from Suzhou, the most striking thing (other than the horrendous traffic) was the hundreds of skyscrapers looming over the city. Because of its lack of space, Shanghai builds upward, so most people live in small apartments high above the city.

Our first stop was the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, a very distinctive skyscraper in the Pudong district. The main attraction here is the elevator you can ride to the top of the building and look out over Shanghai. So, we did that first. Sadly, it was pretty hazy (smog?), and we could only see outlines of buildings in the distance. We spent about 20 minutes at the top and then headed back down to ground level.

There, we visited the Shanghai History Museum in the basement of the TV Tower (this is not the same as the Shanghai Museum). This museum had wax figures and small scale models of various events in Shanghai's history. Personally, I thought the wax figures were super creepy and the history part was not incredibly interesting. Bryan must have felt the same way because we hurried through the exhibits. 😊

From the Pearl Tower, we went to an acrobatic show. Since traffic is so bad, we had to leave about 45 minutes before the show started. The one neat thing about sitting in traffic is that it allowed us to look at and take pictures of the unique high rises throughout the city. The show was considered a Chinese circus, with a variety of performances.

There were "traditional" Chinese acrobats that were amazing! They have great balance and are so flexible, contorting themselves in ways that seem impossible. Next we saw aerial acrobats, who supported themselves above the stage with large hanging silk scarves.

We saw jugglers, dancers, and magicians. One group of men juggled hats. They were incredibly synchronized and timed their throws so perfectly with one another. I can't really explain it well enough to do it justice, but suffice it to say---it was entertaining to watch!

The last act of the show was truly amazing (and nerve wracking!) There was a giant metal cage on stage. One at a time, men on motorcycles entered the cage and rode around and around. By the time they were done, there were FIVE motorcycles riding around this giant ball, perfectly in sync and not crashing into one another. It was very cool to see! Overall, this was the best show we saw in China.

Afterward, we went to a farewell dinner. Although we had one more day in China, this would be the last day we were all together as a group. The meal was mostly the same as our others--family style, beer or Coke to drink, rice, chicken, beef, fish, vegetables and soup. However, we could have as much beer or soda as we'd like (typically we only got one drink at meals). Also, we toasted our trip with a bottle of Great Wall wine! It looked prettier than it tasted.... With our meal we did get a couple of American dishes--French fries, which were too die for at this point in the trip! We also got a traditional American dessert, pastries and ice cream! Bryan and I ate our ice cream with chopsticks. 😊 While it sounds difficult, it really was not. So yummy!

Back at our hotel, we checked in and crashed for the night, ready to enjoy our last day in China, exploring Shanghai on our own.


Day Two:

We woke up early today and were down to breakfast by 7. A group of us all wanted to do the same thing, so we stuck together on our free day in Shanghai. We started by taking a taxi to the Shanghai Museum. We had heard the museum was really interesting, but mostly all the women were going there because we heard they had great shopping! (Reasonable prices, quality merchandise, which you can never be too sure about in some other places...)

Our guide told us that the Museum opened at 8 AM. We wanted to get there early because it is a free museum and could get crowded. So, we arrived at 8:30 AM, only to find that it actually opened at 9. That meant we were the first people in line to get in! While we were waiting, we could see inside the foyer of the museum. Before the staff opened the doors, everyone got together to do stretching and cardio exercises as a group. It was neat to watch.

Upon entering, we headed up to the top floor to start there and work our way down. Throughout the museum, we saw: jade sculptures, scrolls decorated with ornate calligraphy, ancient coins and seals, paintings, ceremonial tribal dress and bronze sculptures. Most of these things were dated before or around 220 B.C.

The shopping was indeed good! We bought something on all four floors--jewelry, tea, T-shirts, and lucky money envelopes. After exploring the Museum, it was 11:30 and we decided to eat lunch at the restaurant there. Bryan had beef fried rice and a Tsingtao (local beer). I had curried chicken and a Coke. As with other places in China, here a small pot of tea was more expensive than beer or soda. A beer was about $1.50 for a 16 oz. bottle, but a pot of tea was $4.50. Much different than the U.S. 😊

Our next stop was the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bazaar. Since we had so many people, we had to take two taxis to get there. We learned that it is customary in China for the male in the party to sit in front next to the driver, give directions and pay for the ride. Since Bryan was the only male in our taxi group, he did the honors.

The Garden was very similar to the Garden of the Master of Fishing Nets. The interesting thing was that it was right in the middle of a bustling city, but incredibly tranquil. You could not even hear the traffic noises once inside. We took lots of nice scenery shots around the garden. We wandered around for about 45 minutes and then decided to check out the bazaar for more shopping!

As we perused many different shops, we realized that none of the shop owners here would bargain with us. So, we decided to walk a few more blocks to an area that looked as if people would bargain and be more reasonably priced. However, this area was mostly local shopping, not really souvenirs like we wanted. We did see an "Everything is 2 RMB" store, which is much like our dollar stores here. I went inside to briefly check it out....and the stuff inside was almost the same as our dollar stores too.

We had heard that the Shanghai Gift Market was the place to go for souvenir shopping, so that was our next stop. We had the address of the Market with us written in Chinese, so we hailed a cab and asked him to take us there. He had no idea where it was. We hailed another taxi, again the driver didn't know where it was. At this point, we thought we should head back to the hotel and maybe one of the English speaking employees could help us.

Back at the hotel, only one other person wanted to join Bryan and I for shopping. The rest of the group wanted to rest before we headed out to the Bund around 7 PM. So, the three of us hopped in a cab (this driver knew where to go) and went off to the Gift Market. It turned out that it was only about 10 blocks from our hotel and we could have walked! Ah well.

The market was a 4 story "mall" with stalls where vendors displayed their merchandise. About every fourth stall had the same thing. There were knock off purses, electronics, and sunglasses. It turns out that every store has a back room where they store "Rolex" watches. There were tons of places that sold T-shirts, chopsticks, shoes, "silk" bags, scarves, and jewelry. Most importantly, every vendor was willing to bargain!! 😊

We bought so much stuff here and I had such a great time bargaining! Vendors start ridiculously high for an item. Your job is to counter with an offer about 10% of theirs. (If they start at 180, you counter 18) Usually, they would tell me, "you crazy, lady," when I gave my initial price. Then, they would say, "Okay, only for you," and give a slight discount from their offer. We walked away several times, only to have store workers follow us and give us the price we asked. Sometimes, vendors would ask me to "Finish" the transaction before walking away. This cracked me up because they just want to see how much they can get from tourists. (Note: we did probably pay a bit too much for some of our purchases, but that's okay).

While I was talking with one saleswoman, she saw I had bought a set of chopsticks. She asked how much I paid for them. When I told her, she was impressed. She said that I bargained well and paid the Chinese price for them! That made my day. 😊

Our time shopping went quickly and we didn't get everything we wanted, but promised others to be back at the hotel by 7. We got there at 6:59, only to find out that no one wanted to go to the Bund. Instead, most people were just going to hang out at the hotel.

Bryan and I dropped off our purchases in our room and decided to walk back to the market for more shopping! On this trip, we were able to find everything else we wanted to buy. Around 9 PM, we walked back to the hotel, but were starving since we hadn't eaten since lunch.

We passed a McDonald's and decided to eat there! We split a Big Mac meal and a pineapple sundae. Both were good. Next to the McDonald's was Starbucks, so we peeked inside to see if their menu was the same as in the States. It was, but they did have more tea options. Also, Bryan decided to get a latte to help him do all our packing before bed.

We were able to fit all our purchases in our luggage, but didn't have much room left to spare! In the morning, we ate our last meal in China and our bus dropped us off at the MagLev station. The MagLev is a train that uses levitation by magnets to travel really fast. The drive to the airport would have taken over an hour and a half due to traffic. The MagLev got us there in EIGHT minutes!!! It traveled at 301 km/hr (about 187 mi/hr). It was super fast and a very neat experience!

Overall, we had an AMAZING trip to China! What an experience of a lifetime.

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