Shanghai Shmanhai

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Last city... Shanghai is a good transition back into America because it is so western. It's unbelievable to go to breakfast & have bread, butter, toast, and COLD orange juice instead of hot tang, lots of unidentifiable food, and rice. The hotel is beautiful & I have a real shower, all of which make me happy.

The city itself is very crowded, with tons of really high supermodern buildings. This is the most white people we've seen in 3 weeks, which is different. I find myself gawking at them (like everyone else did at us) and trying to figure out where they're from, which is a funny turn of events.

Today we went to a silk factory, which was neat to see allll the work that goes into making the fabric. We saw each step, from silk work to silk cocoon, to filament, to fabric. Very neat. We also spent time at the Suzhou gardens, which are famous (or so we're told). They were beautiful, lots of water, bonsai, and koi fish. We visited a fun little market street leading there where I picked up some last little curiousities of China. I will miss bartering once I return to the States... maybe if I start it will catch on.

Tonight and tomorrow are fairly low key, some free time to walk around & enjoy the lights and tall buildings. It's nice that this hotel isn't flanked by the P.L.A. military base so I woke up to my alarm versus shooting drills (ala Chongqing). So, this will be my last blog actually FROM China... tomorrow we visit a museum & have free time to walk around & tuesday i spend over a full day in traveling from china to detroit, detroit to des moines where my lovely parents *who generously funded this trip, and inadvertantly all of your amusement* will pick me up & take me to eat food that doesn't have a face looking at me, or oil floating on top of it. Thanks for taking the time to read, hopefully these were entertaining.. it's hard to capture this gigantic trip, everything i've seen & learned, in quick snippets from smoky internet cafes so hopefully you'll all get a chance to come experience for yourself 😊I'll write another at the end of the week as a quasi-summary, and link to my photographs, so until then.... love, me.

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