Shanghai

The weekend began with my first bullet train experience. Travelling at a break-neck (break-everything) land speed of about 200mph, but with a great deal of comfort. You almost don’t feel like you are even on a moving missile. The total time from Nanjing to Shanghai, with two stops on the way, was only about 90 minutes. The return journey was 70 minutes, non-stop.

I am so thoroughly impressed by this city. It’s not quite a Western city, but it’s darn close. The streets are so much cleaner than anywhere I’ve been in Asia, the drivers are actually polite and do not honk at pedestrians, the buildings were very Western in style and appearance, and the city was well-planned and designed with nature in mind. That being said, it is a very huge, very busy, and very crowded city. I was there over a holiday weekend, which meant the city was fairly empty because many people traveled to their hometowns outside the city. But to a foreigner, who has been in China for only two weeks, the city looked pretty full to me!

After arriving, we did some brief touring to get a feel for the city, then checked into our hotel. After this, we headed straight to dinner: a Mexican restaurant. Hey, living in Asia, you start to miss some good foods from home, and Anthony had been talking up this restaurant and their guacamole nachos all week. He was right, they were delicious. The restaurant also sparked an agreement to have a guacamole “cook-off” sometime in the near future to see who has the best homemade stuff! From there, we took a cab to the foreign shopping center for some much needed cooking ingredients. I also bought a cone of chocolate ice cream from Denmark. Delicious! The Copenhagen label on it reminded me of the two days I spent in Copenhagen with my sista back in May. Great memories! Before retiring for the evening, we went to a massage shop and were each treated to a one hour foot rub. That’s good living!

Day Two: We met up with a local from Shanghai, JoAnn, who is a friend of Anthony’s. JoAnn showed us the old city, where we could view lots of traditional building structures and fight through plenty of crowded alleys!

The morning featured several traditional Chinese treats, including dumplings (popular everywhere) and stinky tofu (very popular in Taiwan. The real test of the day was “haggle” shopping at the fake markets. Named such because this is where you can buy iPod look-alikes, designer jackets, bags, Rolex watches, etc., at basement bargain prices, and you aren’t sure if they’re actually the real product that has “disappeared” from warehouses here, but you definitely think the quality is close, but probably not real…We had fun going back and forth on different price offerings for souvenir items and more.

After the shopping experience, we went back to the heart of downtown. We took a fast elevator to the 91 floor of the largest building in Shanghai, and from here, were given the full view of just how big the city really is. Massive. We ended the day by visiting a large temple downtown, that is a pretty major tourist attraction. After some naps at the hotel, we were back out for food. This time, JoAnn would not let us eat Mexican food, reminding us all that we needed to try Shanghai food. I’m glad she did! Each province, and further, each city, has its own style of cooking food and has its own special dishes and flavors. From my one experience at the Shanghai restaurant, their variety of flavor sure is good! I plan on eating more food like this whenever I can find it. We ate fish, different vegetables including some Chinese varieties I had not tried before (lotus root), pork, some kind of game bird, and of course, dumplings!

Day Three: Anthony and JoAnn left for a trip to Hong Kong, so Paul and I took a “hop on, hop off” tour of the city, sitting on top the open second deck of the double-decker whenever the seats were available. The city tour took us to several locations: Yu Yuan Garden (pretty, but super crowded), the Shanghai Old City Wall (seen only from the bus), the Bund (the picturesque skyline of the Chinese Wall Street), and the site of the First National Congress of Chinese Communist Party. The trip was full of information and history. We saw interesting buildings, historical structures and pictures, etc.

My impression of the city is thus: too many people, but well designed and planned to tightly fit them together. Shanghai is hustle and bustle to the ‘t’ and it shows. The people have a very different attitude and behave differently in public than the rest of China (so I’m told), but I like that. The presence of nature is lacking compared to Nanjing, and based on my short time there versus my time in Nanjing, I’m liable to be much more comfortable where I am now!

By 1pm, we were back at the train station and waiting for our bullet trains out of the city. It was  a very nice short trip to explore and I look forward to returning to Shanghai in October.