And Then Shanghai Rue'd Me

---

Howdy everyone, I’m back for another fantastic adventure, but in Shanghai – weird I know, but you’ll just have to deal with it. So last time on our magical adventure of fun and wonder, I passed CET, partied with my teachers, and had a blast with friends before they went state side. And now we begin a new chapter starting of with a power punch of explosion!

Aug 16th:
And then the three of us fell asleep on the train (gotcha!). The train got in at 5, found the hostel around six, and started wandering around for a place for dinner. After an hour of searching, we eventually found our way to Nanjing street, which has a very Vegas feel to it (consistent readers of my blog will have a sense of déjà vu right about now.) So we found a lofted restaurant for a decent price, ate some awesome food, and then saw Nanjing street and the Bund. Fantastic night view as usual, and I was happy to be a tour guide, and my awesome sense of direction (and I’m not even being sarcastic – Eagle Scout baby!) got us back to the hostel. Boo-Yah!

Aug 17th:
So yeah, it’s raining, and it’s suppose to rain all while we’re here. Awesome. But it does rain in small cells and then clears up so it’s not terrible. So today we went to the Shanghai development center, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Shanghai’s history is really interesting between it’s port life, history during European occupation, revolution, and modernization. The center captured all of that beautifully and had an amazing replica of the whole city that took up a whole floor (and it lit up – teehee!)
Afterwards we went to the Shanghai museum, which had a lot of excellent pieces of Chinese history for me to nerd out on. My companions I don’t think were quite as interested, but their majors are in Chinese Language and Lit, while mine is more of a cultural and historical backing. But it was fascinating for us nonetheless, and I was specifically captivated by the bronze work and the calligraphy (back to my linguistics major).
We then wandered around, found lunch, and then wandered around some more and stumbled upon XinTainDi area, and learned about the Shanghai versions of back alleys and fancy houses (ShiKuMen). It was rather fascinating, and kind of a random discovery (that we later learned we wanted to see anyway from our travel book – so good for us). Also the architecture was beautiful. We also managed to find the Shanghai theatre and music house, but sadly neither had shows while we were in town (Zao Gao! ).
We then went back to the hostel and looked up a good SiChuan restaurant (it’s so hard not to type some of this in Chinese by the way – for example, every time I type “for example,” I want to say “Bi Ru Shuo”, not “for example.” Or Fanguan’r instead of restaurant) We took the metro, got lost, and then found the place. The food was delicious though, so it was worth it – and we had 7 up in small wine glasses – the classy man’s champagne.

Aug 18th:
So today the three of us went to LuXun’s house, who is a really famous Chinese author (that I never heard of – but I do know that Mao ZeDong guy! He wrote that little red book – I frickin’ own Chinese history). But first we wandered through a park that had his house/museum. The park was beautiful, as normal, and it was another pleasant morning stroll. And before finding the dude’s house, we found the clock for China/Japanese peace. This was (personally) hysterical for two reasons: 1) There is still not a warm and fuzzy feeling for Japan, especially in the Shanghai/Nanjing area, due to the whole “Rape of Nanjing” incident during the beginning of WWII. So when we heard about this clock, my first thought was “hahahahaha, lies.” 2) The clock is really ugly, and only about 15 feet tall, which I thought was a perfect metaphor for the current state of relations.
But then we found LuXun’s house. Admittedly I wasn’t as interested as my two lady-friends were, but it was still kinda cool to see, and we could more or less understand all the posters describing his works – which is cool because they were all in Chinese. Just one of many signs (get it? Cause we were reading signs!!!!! ) that our Chinese is getting better and better.
Then we split ways as I had to buy a train ticket for Nanjing. So I went back to the hostel, asked where a good place to buy train tickets was, and they pointed me to a hotel about 15 minutes away. After getting lost for an hour, I finally found it (directions still give me some problems in Chinese – will be fixed) and got two tickets. I then decided that the day was young, and that the day could rue me (because I refuse to rue any day). So I went off and found the Contemporary art museum, which was having a Pixar exhibit. Now I know that isn’t very Chinese, but I was already there dang it, and like I said, the day could rue me. So I went in, and it was really cool. They had a ton of the original sketch and story boards from all the Pixar films, and it was amazing to see how much changed between the drawing board and the big screen, or what looked like it was going to have a ton of focus, only to not be a huge part of the movie (Monsters Inc. especially). Plus, Pixar has a great way of making you feel like a kid again.
So after being lost in animation, I went back to the hostel, and I ended up chilling at the hostel bar (they have internet), trying to figure out some final logistics for my trip to Nanjing, and ended up talking to the bar keep (Di Hu, female) for 2 hours in Chinese. The fact that I can do that now and make new friends in China on a whim is just freaking awesome, and more of a testament to how much my language skills have improved (though I’ve still got some work to do – as she corrected some of my Chinese as I’m typing this – though in my defense, it was more of a cultural fix than actual grammar or meaning mistake). This made me super happy.

And that’s it for Shanghai part 1, but we will need a quick break to Nanjing first. So some thought for food:
I can make friends using Chinese!!!!!!!
Getting lost? Use Robby as your compass (but only on the first night)
The Bund/East Nanjing street at night is just amazing - it's a bucket list item no question
--Robby

---