Thursday, May 12th. Travel to Shanghai.
Today was our day to checkout and travel to Shanghai, but we still had some time in the morning to do a little shopping. After breakfast, everyone met in the lobby to check out and load our luggage onto our truck. We had over 100 suitcases that were lined 3 lanes deep and were definitely a fire hazard and something we would never be allowed to do in the states.
We left the hotel at about 9:00 and headed to Hefang Street for an hour of shopping. I had already bought some things the day before and didn’t plan on buying anything, but I still enjoyed the walk. I had forgotten about many of the little knickknacks that all the little shops had. It brought back some good memories of Dad, Mom, and I haggling for souvenirs when we came here 5 years ago. Even though I didn’t buy anything, I did help a few of the other students barter. One lady was asking a ridiculous amount for a simple book, so I told the guy that he could find these anywhere and just keep looking until he found someone who would haggle. Carla and I did manage to get a good deal. At least I think. The lady was asking 150 Yuan for a handheld fan.It was a pretty fan but didn’t have much writing and no special symbols. I offered 60 Yuan which was obviously too low but I wanted to see her reaction. She was surprised but went down to 130. Carla felt bad for offering so little so I went up to 75. That was also too low but the lady brought it down to 110. I went up to 95 which is what we settled on. From the look on the man’s face that came to help the lady who was selling the fan I could tell they would have let it go for less, but it was our first bargaining experience and Carla was happily satisfied.
We then headed to a fancy restaurant and had lunch. The only new dish we had today was some sort of clam. I forget now what they were called. It was just a little bit of meat in the shell, with the eggy part, and a few noodles piled on top. It was good, but a little chewy and not something I would choose to eat often. After lunch we headed to the train station where we boarded a bullet train to Shanghai. It took us 2 ½ hours to drive from Shanghai to Hangzou last week; the bullet train got us there in less than 1 hour. Our top speed was over 200 miles per hour. We then headed out of the hotel and into the heart of Shanghai. We stopped by somewhere near the Bund (I think it’s called) and took some pictures across the river at some cool towers. I think I might have even gotten a picture of a building my dad designed, the Emerald Tower.
We had a Chinese and Western buffet-style dinner at the SuiSui Restaurant. It was quite a fancy place, and the food was pretty normal. The Western dishes were bacon, fried chicken, potato salad, and broccoli. The Chinese dishes were fried fish, fried noodles, fried rice, dumplings, and watermelon. There wasn’t anything too strange about any of these dishes. The food is beginning to all taste the same. The rice is always good, but most of the others foods pretty much just taste like grease and oil. Many people on the tour have gotten mildly sick from the food and in general, the trip is beginning to wear on everyone. We are all tired and worn out. I don’t know how we’re going to keep up more than two more weeks of this. But, now that I think about it, I can hardly believe that it has already been almost one week. It sure has gone by fast.
After dinner we headed to the Rainbow hotel, arriving at 8 pm and just rested the whole evening.
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