DAY 12, THURSDAY, JANUARY 16TH
Today is travel day! We’re heading to Shanghai! We didn’t leave until 10 so we had time to pick up the last few things, put our bags in a storage room, and check out before getting on the bus. We had to say goodbye to our program assistant as she is a grad student at BNU and wasn’t allowed to come to shanghai so she went home for her holiday break. She was so kind and fun, so we will definitely miss her on our Shanghai trip! Before we went to the train station we had an early lunch with the group! The restaurant for lunch was one of the best we've eaten at so far, and we finally got to try traditional Peking duck. Peking is another name for Beijing and this duck is a pretty special & traditional meal. It was SO good, it really exceeded all my expectations! After lunch we headed to the train station and took a 4.5 hour bullet train to Shanghai! It wasn’t the most comfortable train but it was clean and new. A new tour guide picked us up from the Shanghai train station and we stopped at a restaurant for dinner- nothing too special. After dinner we went to the hotel to check-in! The hotel is an upgrade from our previous dorms and most importantly the beds were WAY more comfortable. I'm also rooming with Sarah who I lived with for the first 3 years in college so that is super fun and makes it feel just like old times :-) Excited to explore Shanghai tomorrow!
DAY 13, FRIDAY, JANUARY 17TH
This morning we grabbed a quick breakfast from the hotel before heading out for the day! Turns out I am a newfound fan of tea eggs (hard-boiled eggs that were soaked in tea). Our first stop of the day is the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We went up to the observation deck which has spectacular 360 views of the city and has an area with a glass floor :o. There were a few other exhibits and features we looked through as well. There was also a museum about the history of Shanghai in the tower. It’s definitely a part of history I’ve never learned much about so it was really interesting and I definitely learned a lot. I was specifically surprised to hear about how much western influence there is in Shanghai.
After the TV tower we went to lunch! The food wasn’t as good as normal- some restaurants have been giving us a sort-of tourist menu which has a lot of fried & non-authentic food, this restaurant even served us French fries. After lunch we headed to the Yuyuan Garden, which is believed to have been built in the Ming Dynasty, over 400 years ago. The garden was beautiful and extremely peaceful considering it sits right in the middle of a huge tourist area.
After the garden we had an hour and a half to walk around the Yuyuan Bazaar/Yuyuan old street area where there were TONS of shops and food. Some parts were extremely touristy and cheep while a few of the streets had a bit higher end or more authentic goods.
After walking around and doing some shopping, we met up at 5:30 to head for dinner and again we weren’t huge fans of the meals as it really wasn’t authentic food at all, we literally had chicken nuggets and fries as one of the entrees. I think our professor finally complained to the tour guide and asked to take us to better restaurants for the rest of our time. After dinner we did the Huangpu river cruise! It was definitely chilly at the top of the boat but the views of the Shanghai skyline at night were absolutely stunning.
Just a random observation from my time in China thus far. To me it seems like they keep a more sort of living history than many other places I've traveled. They continuously update, preserve, and use old buildings/exhibits/gardens/etc. rather than leave them in the state they were in when they were built.
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