A Shanghai'd Weekend

Shnaghai

Sorry it took so long to get this post out, but it’s been crazy busy around here and I knew it would be a long one. So a couple weekends on Sept 9-11 we had a long weekend off of school and so we got to go on vacation. 14 of us decided we wanted to go see Shanghai. It was a fun and amazing weekend.

It started off late Friday afternoon as we scrambled after classes to get to the train station to catch our 4:30 train. The

bus we had to take to get there took 40 min and didn't pick us up until almost 3:45.

None of us wanted to have to buy new tickets and lose that money, so as we got to the station we ran as fast as we could, startling quite a few of the Chinese people, and got to the platform right as the train was pulling up. We were all quite proud of making it in time. It was a 2 1/2 hr ride on a slow train which cost a grand total of 34 RMB or about $5.60. When we arrived in Shanghai, we met up with our Head Teachers’ friend Robert, who

speaks English and helped us get to our hotel. It was a small hotel with tiny rooms that we squished 5 people into, its name was completely in Chinese characters and it was far away from the city center, but it was cheap, clean, and the staff was very friendly and helpful. After we settled in, the one lady who spoke just a little English showed us to a little noodle shop which funny enough looked exactly like the one we eat at here in Changzhou (it even had the exact same pictures on it’s menu). It was super delicious and we even got to watch the cooks make our noodles right in front of us. A couple doors down from there was a little store where we bought water and fruit throughout the rest of our stay.

The rest of our night consisted of planning out what to do the next day. We decided we wanted to go see three main things: the French Concession, Nanjing Road, and The Bund. When we first arrived at the airport in Shanghai, I had grabbed some English travel pamphlets on Shanghai. So when we went there that weekend I made sure to bring them and good thing too since, as it turned out, a couple of them showed very good maps of the layout of the Shanghai metro. So I was able to figure out how to get to all the places we wanted to and sat morning I got up bright and early to chat with the lady at the front desk (which consisted of a few broken English words a lot of pointing and relying heavily on the phrasebook I’m so glad I bought) and had her write down the name of the bus to take to the nearest subway station for us in Chinese characters. It ended up falling on my back the whole weekend to be the navigator around the city, which is a job that has always been my favorite, and since our head teachers opted to travel around by themselves most of the time I became an impromptu band leader which was slightly stressful but kind of fun haha.

Our journey that day started at the bus stop outside our hotel. As the first one drove up all I had was some characters on a piece of paper and one word: Ditie, which is “Subway” in Chinese. So I hopped on and quickly got the driver’s attention and showed him the name of the bus we were supposed to take while pointing forward out the window and saying “Ditie? Ditie?”. It worked like a charm as the driver smiled, nodded his head repeated the word and motioned for us all to get on the bus. I let everyone pass me as we sardined in so that I could stay up at the front of the bus with the driver. We were told it would take about 30 min to get there but as the clock kept ticking we all got a little nervous that we had missed it. However, the driver insisted it was still coming up (or at least I assumed that’s what he was trying to say), so we stayed along for the ride. Eventually one girl heard me talking to the driver and conveyed to me through broken English and hand gestures that she was heading to the subway to so she would tell us when we got to the right stop.

The Metro was definitely one of my favorite things about Shanghai. It was a simple thing but man did it make our life so much easier. Buying tickets was really easy (all the machines had an English setting) and it was quick cheap and convenient. I mastered the process quickly and soon we were on our way to our first stop: the French Concession.

For those of you who don’t know much about Shanghai’s history let me fill you in a little. Back in the day when China first began to come out of seclusion and play around with markets Shanghai

was broken up into “concessions”, each concession was “owned” by a different country which area. The French concession is famous for being a big shopping district as well as one of the areas that still has a lot of cultural influence from the old concession times. Coming out of the station we were greeted with a barrage of large department stores and flashing screens. We only walked along there for about a block until turning off down a side street to explore the less flashy atmosphere. Our first order of business was to find some had sole economic rights to that

breakfast. We came across a bunch of little street food shops that smelled uber delicious. The funny thing is that just as we could see the French influence in the architecture we could see it

in the food as well. They had some delicious egg pastries and bread that were to die for. We also got our first taste of haggling over here as we passed little carts on every street corner selling everything from scarves to trinkets, to pirated DVD’s. We were also hassled constantly on the street by the sketchy black market item people.

After wandering in and out of shops for a couple hours we hopped back on the subway and headed over to Nanjing Rd. It is the biggest shopping area in all of Shanghai, and consists of 5 blocks of street completely blocked off from cars and

only for pedestrians. Before walking along the street however we decided to stroll through People’s Park. It was a beautiful oasis in the middle of a concrete jungle. There were tons of gorgeous trees and ponds with giant lily pads and rock paths. We also passed by the Shanghai Museum but we didn’t go inside because of how long the line was. After circling around the park we walked down Nanjing rd and explored the many high-end shops and enjoyed the vibrant bustling atmosphere. At the other end of Nanjing rd we came to the Bund. Think 50’s era Chicago architecture. The Bund was the old financial district of Shanghai along the Huangpu River, there are old banks and

a city hall as well as a silk factory and clock tower. There’s a scenic overlook across from the Bund where you can look out over the river at the Pudong. The Pudong is the new financial district with some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world and the new flashy buildings that are all lit up at night. It’s way to cool to see. Saturday we left before dark though in order to walk back through Nanjing to the metro and catch it back to the French concession. That night they had a huge parade to celebrate the opening of their 2011 tourism festival. There were dancers and huge flashy floats. It was way cool and there were tons of people. While we were there we met this cool couple Josh and Sasha who had taken a sabbatical from their jobs in DC and were backpacking around the

world for a year. They were the coolest people ever. They'd already been out for a year and were telling us all about their adventures, and also giving us advice if we ever wanted to do something similar.

Sunday we decided to start off at the Yu Gardens and Bazaar. It’s this beautiful section of Shanghai in what’s called the Old Town. It’s where you can see all the old Chinese style buildings with the flying eaves and dragon statues. Heading into the Bazaar you see tons of little shops with various people haggling over prices. It’s a very different vibe from that of the high-class shopping on Nanjing. There’s the smell of street food in the air and the roads are full of pedestrians and cars alike vying for road space. Towards the center of town is the Huxington Teahouse in the middle of a small pond full of gigantic goldfish scrambling for the bread tossed in by tourists. To get to the teahouse you have to cross a zigzagging bridge designed to ward off evil spirits (which apparently can’t turn corners). The entrance to the Yu Gardens is off to the

side of the teahouse. The gardens were so beautiful. They are full of trees and pavilions, and lakes with bridges, and a huge rockery. We had an amazing time exploring its many recesses.

After the gardens we explored the shops and haggled with the merchants and we also stopped at a pearl market where I got some pretty real pearl necklaces for way cheap. We also went to

the Temple of The City God, and got to watch the Chinese worshiping. It was a very interesting sight, and the architecture and statues were so different from anything I've seen

before. There were quite a few people and the air was full with the smoke and smell of burning incense.

As it got late we decided to go back to Nanjing rd so we could see the Pudong lit up at night. It was gorgeous although it was a little disconcerting when we could see the

lights glancing off of the smog in the air. We spent the rest of the night wandering around the town and then headed back to our hotel and crashed. Monday morning we slept in a little and then got ready and packed up our stuff. A lot of us still had stuff to get done for classes the next day so we headed to the train station and had our first adventure buying train tickets. Luckily one of the guys spoke a little English so he set us up with our way home. Getting back to our school was so nice after such a crazy weekend. It really felt like coming home. Being here has been strange but it has been the most incredible thing. I’ve met so many wonderful people and seen so many amazing things. I think I’m really going to miss it once it’s time to head back. It was a wonderful weekend in Shanghai and I’m glad it’s so close because I definitely plan on going back again. J