We went right to our hostel that morning and luckily we could go to our room right away and SHOWER! We shared a room with two guys, Andre who is 22, from Sweden and Emilio who is 27 and from Colombia. I never would have thought that I would meet so many Spanish speakers on this trip! I got to practice my Spanish a lot with Emilio later that night when the 4 of us went out. I can’t get over how many people we have met who are traveling in China for so long! Andre is here for 3 months and Emilio a few weeks, and everyone else we meet is here for at least a few weeks as well.
We walked around Shanghai all day. It’s much much more metropolitan than Beijing, and a lot less culture and historical sites. The buildings and architecture here is festinating, it’s so modern and futuristic looking.
The Pearl Tower
One thing that shocked me is how much construction is going on here. Almost every single road is being redone or a building is being built or renovated. Shanghai is the host of the Expo in 2010 and there are signs everywhere that say “Better City. Better Life.” SO they are obviously trying to revamp and improve the city before May. I would love to come back here in a few years and see how much the city changes.
Old Town Shanghai
We went to Old Town first, which I really liked. Most of the buildings are old temples that have been turned into little restaurants and shops. The roads are small, kind of like a lot of little alley ways, most only for pedestrians. There is a small pond and gardens in the middle of Old Town with a bridge that zig zags over the pond. This was definitely my favorite part of Shanghai. After that we grabbed a little lunch and tried dumplings for the first time, which is one of the most popular Chinese foods. I had pork and shrimp filled dumplings, which tasted like McDonalds sausage and I will never eat them again!
Andre was nice enough to lend us his guide book for the day so we followed the walking tour guide of the French Concession area. It has a very French European vibe and the buildings reminded me of Paris a lot. As we were walking we passed a farmers market that was going on in the park. Everyone is so pushy there too! I just can’t get over how pushy and rude everyone is here, it just blows my mind. People will cut you in line or cut you off or just stop dead in their tracks while walking even if there are hundreds of people al around them, and then I end up walking right into them. They are so inconsiderate, even at the post office today a lady was trying to hold a heavy box and lift something else and there was a man who cut in front of her and didn’t even offer to help!
Anyways, we cut the walking tour short, the guide said it should take 3 hours to do the whole walk. I think we walked for 30 minutes. We decided to go to the Markets. Before we even steped inside a guy came right up to us with pictures of Louis Vutton bags and Rolex watches and was trying to get us to go to his stall on the second floor. He followed us and harassed us for almost 30 mintutes. We tried to walk away but he would just wait for us to come out of a store and keep on following us, even after we yelled at him. I don’t know how, but we finally ditched him. The market we were at was pretty bad, it was stuffy and really depressing, not like the one in Beijing at all. I did get a really cute pair of boots though!
When we got back to our hostel to take our afternoon nap we were told that there were no trains to Hong Kong on the 30th, they only go there on odd days, So we totally screwed that up when planning this trip back in June. So we decided to leave on the 29th, we did not want to be stuck on a train all night on Halloween. We also found out that there are no express trains from Shanghai to Hong Kong like the one we took from Beijing, and that it is an 18 hour ride! The soft sleeper beds were expensive so we got the cheapest hard sleeper, we could only imagine what it is going to be like. Since our time in Shanghai was going to be cut short we decided to live it up and go out that night, seeing that Shanghai is known for their night life. We had dinner with Emilio and Andre, I tried the famous peking duck and I also had squid which I really liked too. We read online that there were a few bars in this one area that had great deals on Wednesday nights so we went there. There was no one there when we got there but by the time we left the second bar it was filled with mostly foreign older men and Chinese women who were dressed pretty nice and hanging out with the men. I think we were not in the best area, if you know what I mean. One man even brought his 12 year old soon with him to the bar and they were playing pool and flirting with two the Chinese women, I couldn’t believe it! We went to a club after that called M2. It cost 1200rmb, almost $200, to just sit at a table. So we decided not too, and dancing was more fun anyways. We had heard about a deal 10 drinks for 100rmb so that worked out even better for us. Andre and I got pulled up front to the stage while we were dancing by the mc’s and got hats and I think we were being filmed too, it was pretty fun. The four of us had such a fun time and we ended up staying up til almost 3:30am!! You could say that I was pretty tired this morning.
squid and peking duck for dinner!
At dinner with one of our roommates Andre
Katie & I out in Shanghai!
Luckily we slept in and spent the day shopping! We went to the better market and we got some great deals on Longchamp bags! Originally the lady at the shop wanted to charge us over $700 for the 25 bags we bought (only 3 were mine) but we talked her down and only spent $106!!! I also got three others for $21, and a really cute coach wallet, because my other wallet ripped a few days ago.
It’s a lot warmer in Shanghai than Beijing and it’s just gonna get warmer and warmer as we head south so we decided to ship some of our warm clothes and our purchases from the market home to lighten our loads. Finding the post office was such a process. It was not up one block, cross the street, walk three blocks and turn left. This is what we were told at the hostel and he even showed us a map and where the post office was. Let me just say that he was wayyyyyy off with the location. Thank god Katie has a visual translator book, which has over 1000 pictures in it and we used this to ask people the way. Once we got there they had to “inspect” everything we were shipping home, and they wouldn’t let me send home the nail polish I bought!! ( O.P.I for $1) All in all the whole trip took us an hour. I just hope the box actually makes it to the states!
No comments:
Post a Comment