Shanghai

So on Monday we left in the evening to go to the Beijing train station. We got on the train, and it had compartment room things for each group, with two bunk-couches. They were supposed to be like beds, but there were 6 of us for 4 beds. Adam quickly stole the first one, and Josh got the other soon after :P
So me, Abby, Brett, and Gidianny were left with the bottom two. Me and Abby curled up in awkward positions to try to both fit comfortably, and Brett and Gidianny got the other couch. Adam and Josh slept really well, and I think Gidianny did too. Abby slept a little. But me and Brett didn’t get any sleep at all. Gidianny took some pictures of us trying to sleep, haha. She didn’t get one of my most awkward positions though. They said there was one time where it looked like I was trying to dive into the couch but got stuck. Like I was laying on my stomach, with my legs up on the wall, and my arms straight out on my sides. They said it looked so incredibly uncomfortable lol. We fiiiinally got to Shanghai after about 12 hours on the train. We went straight to Emily’s family friend’s house where the girl half of our group were going to stay the nights at. We met her and her two little sons, one was 2 and one was 4, Collin and Miles. They were super cute and had so much energy. Afterwards we went to “The People’s Park” or something like that. It was a big park. It was really cool though because it was the first chance we had to really see the skyline. Shanghai is beautiful. There are so many skyscrapers and unique architecture. At the park we went to a free museum and saw Chinese antiques and stuff. It was pretty interesting. Afterwards, we came out to see this really cool fountain. It reminded me of the one at the Seattle Center. Out of the blue, Adam and Abby decided they were going to run through it. The little thrill seekers! So we all got our cameras out and ready, and there they went. Some Chinese official person blew their whistle at them, but didn’t do anything else. You could hear a big collective gasp from all the people watching, and a few claps of applause as they came out on the other side of the fountain. Us Americans sure know how to attract attention.After that, we went and saw Emily’s hotel. She had been in Shanghai for a few days because her dad was in town on business. Their room was on the 35th floor. So we got a really pretty view out the window. Then we all went to the Bund, a place where you can look across the river and see all the skyscrapers of downtown Shanghai.
It was so incredibly beautiful. The next day, Wednesday, the Turners cooked us a wonderful breakfast. It was probably the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been in China, probably just because it wasn’t Chinese.

She made us eggs with ham and then cinnamon muffins. Ohhhh man so delicious. Afterwards we went back to the Bund because we wanted to see it again during the daylight. It rivaled the nighttime beauty, if not bettered it. Does that even make sense? So now that people could see us because of the sun, they realized we were white. So we got a bunch of people asking to take pictures with us. I literally lost track of the number of pictures that were taken of me that day. One guy even came up to me and shoved his 2 year old daughter into my arms to take a picture of me with her. Oh fun times being a celebrity.

After we were done looking there, we went across the street to find a really old French hotel. We ran into some old guys who gave Abby a really pretty fan for free. Again, celebrity status! Also, all day Abby and Adam were having a contest with each other to see how many times they could say “Guoqingjie Kuaile” (Happy National Day (the Holiday we got the week off for)) it was funny to see the reactions of people when these super white foreigners spoke Chinese to them. But one of the times, Adam said it to a security guard, and he was like “Uhhh…that’s over.” Apparently it had ended the day before? But then someone else said it still had a few days left. So who knows. So we saw that really pretty hotel! It was 着不多 100 years old. It looked so French and it was beautiful. I was kind of surprised they let us in to look at it, since it was so high class and expensive looking. One of the new workers offered to give us a tour, so she lead us around and showed us all the rooms. During the tour I realized they probably only let us in because we’re foreigners and maybe looked like we had money, and maybe they thought that if we liked it enough, we would stay there. But who knows. It was pretty. 

Then we wanted to take a ferry across the river to the downtown Shanghai area. So we walked on top of the Bund place, but couldn’t find a place to buy tickets for the ferry. So we went down some stairs, and then asked a Chinese guy and he was like, walk that way for 10 minutes. So we walked that direction and then asked another person, and they pointed in a different direction and said to walk that way for 5 minutes. This continued on for I don’t know how many more people telling us completely different directions. I wonder if maybe Chinese people just don’t like to be wrong, so they make up answers if they don’t know. Who knows. After an hour or so of wandering around, we finally found the place that sold ferry tickets. 2 kuai (30cents) for a ticket across the river. I like China, it’s so pianyi, cheap. The ferry was just like any transportation device in China, crowded and filled to the brim with people.

We got to the other side and explored the area a bit. We got a few of these big baozi for 2.5kuai each, they were really yummy (I looove baozi). And then we made our way to the tallest building in China, the 3rd tallest in the world. It’s basically impossible to get long on the way there, because you just look up and see it. When we got near its base, it was amazing, I had to hurt my neck in order to look up and see the top. We didn’t go up to the top though because it was about 100kuai to go up. So we snuck over to the really tall hotel right next to it. You could pay 100kuai to ride up to the 85th floor, OR you could be sneaky like us and walk around like you owned the place, and make it up to the 83rd floor for free. So we looked out of a window from the 83rd floor and got to see a lot of the city. So pretty!

So after we were done there, we headed back to Emily’s hotel for dinner. We got to eat their continental dinner, and it was so good! We all filled our plates several times, because we don’t really get the opportunity to eat that kind of food very often. And then we moved onto dessert where we all filled our plates several times again. Best meal ever! At one point, Josh brought up a plate of desserts, but realized he forgot something, so he handed his plate to Adam and then left to go get what he forgot. So there Adam was, having been given a plate of Josh’s food. So what does he do? “Quick, everyone! Take something!” So we all picked off something from the plate. When Josh came back, he was all smiles like usual, until he saw his plate with a single piece of food on it, and his smile slowly and sadly disappeared. I instantly regretted it, but the laughs were worth it. Josh himself admitted that it was really funny.
That night we walked around the city a bit more until we came across a big group of old Chinese people dancing Chinese ballroom. So we decided to join their dance party. I was hesitant at first, because I really don’t like dancing. But I ended up doing the swing and cha-cha with Adam and some waltz with Josh. And in one of the songs, we all did the Macarena. Some of the Chinese people were really fascinated with that and tried to learn and do it with us. This one lady was really cute and giggled uncontrollably every time we got to the end where you shake your butt. It was a fun night 

The next day we went out early to a park and walked around a little bit. Then we go to a little lake and rented two little boats. We road around calmly at first, enjoying the sites. But once we had gone everywhere that we could, we decided to play a little bumper boats. At first just with each other, but then we started “accidentally” running into strangers. Most people had a good sense of humor and laughed along with us. But a few others glared so scarily, so we stayed away from them. There were a lot of families out with their little kids, so we would always wave to them when we floated by, and they’d get so excited and wave back. It was so funny, all through the week, little kids would point at us and shout “waiguoren!” (foreigner) to their parents. And their parents would nod in understanding. I was always so tempted to point back at them and shout “Zhongguoren!” (Chinese person) but never did. But I was so surprised at how many little kids called it out. We stayed at the park a little too long, and had to super rush to the train station in order to catch our train to Nanjing on time. Like, really rush. We were literally sprinting through the train station, attracting quite a bit of attention. But we made it on time 