Travel Journal - Days #01 + #02 (Shanghai)
As some of you know, I recently returned from an 18 day long trip in China. ^^ I kept a journal while I was there (and took a ton of pictures) so I figured I'd post them here to share~
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1/8/10 - 1/9/10 (USA - Shanghai)
We arrived in Shanghai today after a 15 hour planeride. UGH. We flew up and over the artic instead of over the Pacific, so it took longer and we had to keep our window shades shut because of radiation. ARGH. (Not only that, our TVs were broken, so everyone was going stir crazy! I don't care about the movies, but it was hard not knowing where we were or how long we had been flying.)
Flying over the Arctic is actually really pretty, because it's like a perpetual sunrise~
But we all got there in one piece, which is what matters. There were four of us students on the trip (we'll call us KiKi, Brian, Emily, and Julie). Brian was the only guy and he spoke fluent Mandarin, so he was very valuable to us. =D He grew up here in the USA and had been to China before, but not recently.
Once we got to the airport, we went through customs and got our luggage without any problems, then met our guide. We'll call him Dean. He was our trip guide and would be with us for the entire duration of our stay in China. For each city we visited, we'd get a local guide. Out guide for Shanghai was there at the airport, too, and he helped us get our luggage out of the airport and onto our cute little bus (which smelled like smoke). We'll call him Wesley.
Our bus! We became really attached to it...lol!
We headed for the hotel, which was in downtown Shanghai, so it took us about 40 minutes to get there from the airport. On the way, Wesley told us a little but about Shanghai and we looked around at the outskirts of the city. I took a bunch of pictures (which only came out so-so since they were through a bus window), but was kind of surprised at first. What I was looking at, wasn't the skyscraper-infested city you see in pictures on the internet. What we were looking at were ruins--houses, farms, buildings. Power lines dominated the scene and small houses were squashed tightly together in between. Tiny, run-down farms dotted the area, often surrounded closely by buildings on all sides. Even in places where the building or house was falling apart, I would still sometimes see laundry hung to dry outside, indicating someone still lived there. Construction was EVERYWHERE. The highway we were driving on was brand new and in places you could see them still working on other parts of it. But there were sites where buildings had been knocked down and new ones were going up. It was a rather depressing scene, actually. I think it was made worse by the fact that it was cloudy that day...the sky just seemed to be pressing down on everything. There was a lot of smog, too.
The view out the bus window of the outskirts of Shanghai.
As we got into downtown Shanghai, the houses and buildings became close together and the farms disappeared, but the construction remained. Wesley explained it was because Shanghai is holding a "World Expo" later this year and they are renovating the city (in part to create accommodations for the 70 million visitors they are expecting. Side note: we later found out what he told us was untrue...Shanghai is under perpetual construction.)
Traffic in Shanghai is CRAZY. There are people, buses, cars, trucks, bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles everywhere. Vehicles don't yield to pedestrians and bikes/mopeds drive right along with the rest of traffic. Everyone's honking (not because they're angry, but to let people know they're there before they pull out in front of them or cut them off) and all the smaller vehicles were weaving in and out, no matter if traffic was moving or stopped. Our busdriver was amazing...actually, all the drivers are amazing, the way they manage to squeeze into small spaces without hitting anything and stop just in time to avoid hitting other vehicles. It was mind-boggling. We eventually made it to our hotel and took our bags up to our rooms. Our professor, who was leading the trip, (we'll call him Dr. Chris) showed us how to get money out of a Chinese ATM and we had some downtime after that.
The little tiny side street to the left is where our hotel was located.
We all took much-needed showers, then met in the hotel restaurant for dinner. Dean ordered for us and we ate our first Chinese-style meal. Basically, you order a bunch of dishes (and since our group was so big we had a revolving tray in the center of the table to put them on, haha) and everyone gets a bowl of rice and you take little bits of whatever sounds tasty. I can't say I liked everything, but most of it was good. I'm not a picky eater, I'll try pretty much anything; I just have to avoid spicy food because my body can't handle it. XD The water they brought us to drink was warm out of a caraffe--I later remembered that was because you can't drink the water in China. They bring it to you warm like that to show it has been boiled and therefore sanitized.
When we were finished eating, we boarded our little bus again and went to see the illuminated Pudong area. Pudong is the area of China you see most featured on the internet--all the tall skyscrapers and the Oriental Peral TV Tower. At night, they're illuminated and when viewed from across the river, they're gorgeous. They sparkled, glowed, and changed colors, while boats drifted lazily by on the water, covered in hundreds of small lights. It was fascinating when compared with the areas of Shanghai we had seen earlier.
The Pudong as seen from across the Huangpu River.
We were supposed to view Shanghai from the Bund, the part of the city filled with European-style buildings from China's semi-colonial times, but because of construction, we were unable to go there. We could see just a little bit of the Bund from where we were standing, though, and all the buildings were lit up there as well. (And all had a PRC flag flying from the top...symbolic symbols of China's power over the former European influence.)
We returned to the hotel not long after that and we all decided to go to bed. One, because we were tired after all that time traveling, and two because none of us really knew each other that well, yet, so we weren't really comfortable with hanging out together yet.
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1/8/10 - 1/9/10 (USA - Shanghai)
We arrived in Shanghai today after a 15 hour planeride. UGH. We flew up and over the artic instead of over the Pacific, so it took longer and we had to keep our window shades shut because of radiation. ARGH. (Not only that, our TVs were broken, so everyone was going stir crazy! I don't care about the movies, but it was hard not knowing where we were or how long we had been flying.)
Flying over the Arctic is actually really pretty, because it's like a perpetual sunrise~
But we all got there in one piece, which is what matters. There were four of us students on the trip (we'll call us KiKi, Brian, Emily, and Julie). Brian was the only guy and he spoke fluent Mandarin, so he was very valuable to us. =D He grew up here in the USA and had been to China before, but not recently.
Once we got to the airport, we went through customs and got our luggage without any problems, then met our guide. We'll call him Dean. He was our trip guide and would be with us for the entire duration of our stay in China. For each city we visited, we'd get a local guide. Out guide for Shanghai was there at the airport, too, and he helped us get our luggage out of the airport and onto our cute little bus (which smelled like smoke). We'll call him Wesley.
Our bus! We became really attached to it...lol!
We headed for the hotel, which was in downtown Shanghai, so it took us about 40 minutes to get there from the airport. On the way, Wesley told us a little but about Shanghai and we looked around at the outskirts of the city. I took a bunch of pictures (which only came out so-so since they were through a bus window), but was kind of surprised at first. What I was looking at, wasn't the skyscraper-infested city you see in pictures on the internet. What we were looking at were ruins--houses, farms, buildings. Power lines dominated the scene and small houses were squashed tightly together in between. Tiny, run-down farms dotted the area, often surrounded closely by buildings on all sides. Even in places where the building or house was falling apart, I would still sometimes see laundry hung to dry outside, indicating someone still lived there. Construction was EVERYWHERE. The highway we were driving on was brand new and in places you could see them still working on other parts of it. But there were sites where buildings had been knocked down and new ones were going up. It was a rather depressing scene, actually. I think it was made worse by the fact that it was cloudy that day...the sky just seemed to be pressing down on everything. There was a lot of smog, too.
The view out the bus window of the outskirts of Shanghai.
As we got into downtown Shanghai, the houses and buildings became close together and the farms disappeared, but the construction remained. Wesley explained it was because Shanghai is holding a "World Expo" later this year and they are renovating the city (in part to create accommodations for the 70 million visitors they are expecting. Side note: we later found out what he told us was untrue...Shanghai is under perpetual construction.)
Traffic in Shanghai is CRAZY. There are people, buses, cars, trucks, bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles everywhere. Vehicles don't yield to pedestrians and bikes/mopeds drive right along with the rest of traffic. Everyone's honking (not because they're angry, but to let people know they're there before they pull out in front of them or cut them off) and all the smaller vehicles were weaving in and out, no matter if traffic was moving or stopped. Our busdriver was amazing...actually, all the drivers are amazing, the way they manage to squeeze into small spaces without hitting anything and stop just in time to avoid hitting other vehicles. It was mind-boggling. We eventually made it to our hotel and took our bags up to our rooms. Our professor, who was leading the trip, (we'll call him Dr. Chris) showed us how to get money out of a Chinese ATM and we had some downtime after that.
The little tiny side street to the left is where our hotel was located.
We all took much-needed showers, then met in the hotel restaurant for dinner. Dean ordered for us and we ate our first Chinese-style meal. Basically, you order a bunch of dishes (and since our group was so big we had a revolving tray in the center of the table to put them on, haha) and everyone gets a bowl of rice and you take little bits of whatever sounds tasty. I can't say I liked everything, but most of it was good. I'm not a picky eater, I'll try pretty much anything; I just have to avoid spicy food because my body can't handle it. XD The water they brought us to drink was warm out of a caraffe--I later remembered that was because you can't drink the water in China. They bring it to you warm like that to show it has been boiled and therefore sanitized.
When we were finished eating, we boarded our little bus again and went to see the illuminated Pudong area. Pudong is the area of China you see most featured on the internet--all the tall skyscrapers and the Oriental Peral TV Tower. At night, they're illuminated and when viewed from across the river, they're gorgeous. They sparkled, glowed, and changed colors, while boats drifted lazily by on the water, covered in hundreds of small lights. It was fascinating when compared with the areas of Shanghai we had seen earlier.
The Pudong as seen from across the Huangpu River.
We were supposed to view Shanghai from the Bund, the part of the city filled with European-style buildings from China's semi-colonial times, but because of construction, we were unable to go there. We could see just a little bit of the Bund from where we were standing, though, and all the buildings were lit up there as well. (And all had a PRC flag flying from the top...symbolic symbols of China's power over the former European influence.)
We returned to the hotel not long after that and we all decided to go to bed. One, because we were tired after all that time traveling, and two because none of us really knew each other that well, yet, so we weren't really comfortable with hanging out together yet.