HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
China rocks on Chinese New Year, I don't care what the lonley planet says. Yes, some things are closed. Yes, there are so many tourists that sometime walking around feels like your in a mosh pit. Yes, most resturants close around 7pm and that limits how and what you can eat, but holy crap the fireworks alone were worth it (not to mention the shopping, and general new years antics).
I'll tell you all about it :)
Day 1
Leave Korea. Very tired (only 2 hours of sleep). Arrive in Shanghai. Meet our tour guide and start wondering if taking a planned tour is a good ides or not (first planned tour ever, so i was a little skeptical). My feelings changed when I met Summer, out tour guide, she was awsome. Apparently our Korean travel agency did not communicate anything with her other than 10 people were coming and they spoke English. She did not know if we were Koreans who spoke English or whatever. She also did not know what the hell they had told us our itinerary was, so she had not been able to book some things (alought we chose not to see the acrobatic show or go up the TV tower because both were REALLY expensive on the New Year).
Apparently, Chinese people get 7 days of holiday for the New Year. Its the holiday that pretty much demands that you go and spend quality time with family, so the majority of locals to Shanghai had apparently cleared out to go to other parts of China and celebrate the New Year. Its also a very popular time to travel, so there were tonns of tourists who came to the best spot in China to shop, Shanghai. I know I had told you before that Hong Kong had the best market shopping, and Bejing had the best outdoor markets; but Shanghai had such intense shopping that it out rivaled either of those two cities. I'd like to see Taiwan and compare.
Anyway. We saw the Bund (the river that connects to the sea) a walkway along the water. Shanghai is mostly older and not as developed, although all its buildings are western in style. When you get to the Bund you can see the "island" that looks onto most of Shaghai. This is where they are building up the "future" of the city. They are mandated to build ne REALLY tall building there once a year. Its the rich side, the side with vegetation and clean streets. The side with all the business. All the houses and appartments there have their own plumbing, while all the pooer people who only make $200 USD a month live on the other side of the City. Quite a class divide.
We also saw a garden dedicated to a Chinese man who did something with writing that I did not quite understand, he did somehow help the Koreans durring the Japenese war by spreading information - i'll have to look it up. I was busy taking photos of people in the park.
We also went to ta large temple with a reclining Budda. This was the highlight of the day. It was a beautiful complex, painted yellow and filled with red lanturns for the New Year. There were tonns of people praying for good luck for the New Year. It also contained the largest jade Budda statue. I could not take pictures and they did not have postcards, but it was absolutly beautiful.
We checked into our 4 star hotel later that night and all got drinks and regrouped. We were told not to go out before 10pm because most of the younger crowd would be with their families from 7-10 having dinner for New Years. We got recomendations from Summer and headed to a place called "Bar Street". We all ende dup getting seperated, which was ok. My friend from work and I were with another Canadian couple and we bar hopped. The first bar we went into was playing thiscomedy sketch (that was apparently playing in many othe bars too, so must be some New Years program) that was too loud so we had one drink and left. We stayed in the second bar until midnight which was hilarious because it was a strip club. At first we just thought it was a live band in very revealing clothing, but when the band stopped a screen went up and stippers came out and danced. Classic, we had front row seats.
We spilled into the streets with everyone else when midnight hit. Drunk people letting off fireworks EVERYWHERE. It was amaizing. People singing, hugging, dancing in the streets. Random drunk guys holding roman candles up to their heads trying to ight them. Some of the stuff we saw was pretty freaking dangerous. We left after about a hald an hour because the air had filled with so much smoke from the fireworks that it was actually har to breathe. We went home and went to bed.
Day 2
We woke up to people slill lighting fireworks. Apparently that goes on for 7 days. We mat our driver and went to a public garden. It was similar in style to a mix between the forbidden city and the summer palace in Beijing. It used to be owed by a wealthy man, but he went bankrupt, and then it belonged to the government. It became public in 1996. It was breathtaking. Designed to enternain the wealthy by private opera shows and enternainment. It took a couple of hours to go through. I ran into some Korean guy at the end who showed me all the pictures he had been taking of me in the garden, funny as hell.
We headed into the market after the garden, the exit of the garden goes into the market street. Holy Crap. SHOPPING. We all went to town. There were blocks and blocks and blocks of markets. Selling jade, pearls, china, tea, silk, and anything you can think of. There were so many people! We all shoppind ourselves out and went for dinner :)
Later that night we went to another shopping street. This one was a 5km walk. A street designated to actual stores (government sponsered). Cars could only drive so far. Oh so many people. My work friend and I had been shopped out in the other market and just wandered around and stopped for drinks.
We all managed to go out together for drinks that night. We went to a place called "New World" that consisted of a paved complex with bars named after french and latin words. The New World is all about french and latin people. We ended up in another bar with a live band (apparently that very popular in Shanghai). The bar was called Rendavous (I spelled it wrong) This band did not strip. They did play latin music though, which was funny. We had a great time dancing though. One of the girls got off the stage in the begining and dragged me onto the dance floor, it was pretty funny. She spent the rest of the night begging me to keep dancing. We had a great night.
Day 3.
Our free day. we met up in the market again, the good outdoor one what sold all the traditional stuff. we wandered the streets and got suck in mosh pit crowds. We ate crazy street food. I had a quail on a stick. I could only eat the leg and had to toss it, the rest was still covered in feathers! We shopped our brains out again and then headed for lunch. After lunch it was time to go back to the airport. We had some time to relax at the airport and then headed back to Korea.
All in all. Great trip. Spent a lot of money though! China freaking ROCKS for New Years.
I know this post is long long long, but whatever.