Shanghai, China

Shanghai, China! As we drove into Shanghai we immediately knew it was going to be much different than any other Chinese city. There were neon lights, skyscrapers, and elevated freeways everywhere. It's like a more densely packed, traffic clogged LA. After we got situated in the hotel, the four of us youngens tried to hit the town. Our hotel was just off of Nanjing Road, which is a long street through the heart of Shanghai and is known as the best shopping area. The street was cool and there is lots of shopping, but there is a complete lack of bars or clubs in the area. We ended up settling on buying some beers at a convenience store and going back to our hotel to drink and play cards (we purchased a $1 deck of Chairman Mao playing cards a few cities back. Chairman Mao says, "Work is Struggling.").

The first stop on our tour of Shanghai was the Shanghai Pearl TV Tower. The tower is one of the tallest TV towers in the world and has an observation deck near its peak. We walked around the observation deck for a while checking out the 360 views of Shanghai. The floor below the observation deck had a glass floor that looked down on a park 500 feet below. Not for the acrophobics for sure and very, very cool. After the tower we walked around the park that surrounds the tower and runs against the river. The park was filled with Chinese school kids there for a field trip or something. While we were walking around a girl started to talk to Lara. The girl was 11 and was with a group of friends. The girl spoke very little English but we all enjoyed talking. While we talked to them the girls would give us candy. Totally unexpected and really cool.

Like every day we were in a tour, we were taken to a tourist trap. This tourist trap was a silk factory & restaurant. The silk factory was interesting because we saw the whole production cycle from cocoon to cloth (they skipped the sweat shops and child labor stages though). We did end up getting a silk comforter, so the dog and pony show worked on us, so did the awesome price though.

Like Italy, I would like to go off on the food we had in China. When Lara and I were travelling solo in China (Beijing and Hong Kong) we had great food that was totally unique. The meals that we had with our tour group were all the same (except 2). All 20 meals! Every single meal (lunch and dinner) was steamed rice, tomato and egg soup, sweet and sour pork, spicy chicken and peanuts, pork and onions, steamed bok choy, beef and a vegetable, and finished off with sliced watermelon. The meals are all served family style on a lazy Susan, on a round table that seats 8 - 12 people. The restaurants were all large restaurants with dozens of other identical tables and occasionally our own room. The restaurants were never heated. So you can guess what our lunch was like at the silk factory.

After our unique lunch at the silk factory we were taken to China Town. I know it seems odd that there is a China Town in Shanghai, China, but there is. Since much of old Shanghai has been bulldozed to make way for condos, office buildings and KFCs there is very little 'old China' left. To rectify that the government has built a large area with shops and department stores all in the classical Chinese architecture. The town was kind of interesting and Lara and I bought some Chinese souvenirs that we hadn't purchased yet.

Following China Town we went to a traditional Chinese acrobatic show. The show started off with a bunch of guys juggling hats, followed by a 5th grade quality magic show, and concluded by motorcyclists riding in a large steel mesh ball. I'm belittling the performance actually. There were about a half-dozen acts, some were good, like a guy who climbed a tower of balanced chairs 40 feet high. Some acts were weak, like a pair of acrobats who swung in the air on a ribbon. It was great getting the experience though.

We finished the last night with our tour group at a dinner near our hotel. All twelve of us had a great time and at dinner we got to thank each other for making the two week experience so great. When we got back to the hotel Tim, Chloe, Lara and I convinced our tour guide to hang out with us and play cards. Because tour guides are strictly regulated by the Chinese government and they can loose their license for drinking I have to censor what happened. But, I can say the four of us had a good time getting to know our tour guide a little better. Late that night Tim, Chloe, Lara and I said our good-byes. Tim and Chloe were leaving early the next morning to go back to LA and Lara and I were staying in Shanghai for another day. Having Tim and Chloe on the trip with us was awesome and definitely made it a lot better.

The next morning we didn't get up too early, but we did manage to get up early enough for the hotel's complimentary breakfast. After breakfast we meandered through town. We started our walk along Nanjing Road and then detoured into some side areas. As we were walking we were approached by a trio of 20 somethings, two girls and a guy, all appeared to be locals. They had overheard us speaking English and immediately started talking English to us. The five of us hit it off really well and they invited us to a tea drinking lesson that they were going to. The one guy in the group lives in Shanghai as an engineer and was touring the two girls around the city since they are thinking about moving there. The two girls are college students and will be graduating soon. Part of the guy's tour was a traditional tea room. We knew that following them could end up being really good or really bad. We decided to brave it. We went to a tea room inside a shopping center and sampled 6 types of great tasting tea. We also learned the proper way of tasting tea. We were there for almost two hours and had a great time with the other three. There were lots of memorable 'cultural' exchanges. We also took pride in increasing their English vocabulary by teaching them the meaning of such useful words as; awesome, hella, and transgender. After the tea room the trio had to leave to catch up with some other people and Lara and I got back to seeing the city.

We walked a good 5 miles from the time we left the tea room until we got back to our hotel. We walked through lots of side alleys but we didn't encounter anything too crazy. Since we were no longer travelling in organized tours we had to start making arrangements for our upcoming travel to Southeast Asia. Since the hotel's secure wi-fi was no match for my hacking ability (username:admin password:admin) we spent 5 hours planning out the next two weeks. Not the way we wanted to spend our last night in Shanghai, but oh well.

Our final morning in Shanghai we got to experience Chinese public transportation. We rode the Shanghai subway and then the new Mag-Lev train to the airport. The subway was no Hong Kong subway, but it beats any American subway system, although it was packed. The mag-lev train was trippy. It covers 30 miles in about 8 minutes and at its peak it goes 430kph (~250mph). It was odd riding on a multi-billion dollar train going 250mph on tracks over shanty villages, but that's China.