Shanghai Express

Since Russ has been doing the blog's heavy-lifting so far (if you can call it that...effing Chinese government), I figured I'd chime in for a couple.

After Beijing, we took a train to Shanghai The first afternoon we explored the French Concession which, as the name implies, was the quarter originally owned by the French but ceded back when they left Shanghai. It was one of the more enjoyable walking-around experiences that I've had throughout the trip. The French Concession strongly reminds me of parts of Santiago. I'm not sure whether it's the architecture or the ubiquity of trees along the street, but it had a very familiar feel. Shanghai is definitely much greener than Beijing, and generally has a very pleasant air about it. After that, Russell and I met up with this Belgian girl who stayed at our hostel in
Beijing and her British classmate. We went and did laundry at the university where they had been studying Mandarin. Yes, you can breathe a bit easier knowing that we - amazingly perhaps - actually have done laundry. It was pretty nice to have other people to meet up with.

The next day we got up pretty early and went to the Communist Propaganda Museum, which apparently houses the largest number of propaganda posters in the world from China's Communist Party from 1949 to 1980. The crazy part: since the Communist Party is obviously still in power, the museum has to be super low-key and is essentially hidden in the basement of a crappy apartment building. Can you believe that? The museum that has the MOST Chinese communist propaganda posters IN THE WHOLE WORLD and it's in some dank basement.



Subsequently we went to a bazaar on the other side of the river from The Bund (the former European quarter). It was HUGE and people were selling all different kinds of things, from ipods and watches to little statues and rugs and clothes. The most interesting thing was encountering a young Chinese woman, who approached us on the subway and asked if she could accompany us and practice her English. That's one thing that we noticed about Shanghai - the large number of Chinese students or former students who are really eager to approach foreigners and practice their English. There was also a beautiful garden there that was apparently one of the largest gardens in southern China. Just as we were about to leave it started POURING on us. Luckily I brought my poncho, but Russell didn't bring anything so he got wet wet wet. Not a happy Russell.

Shanghai also presented us with our first chance to eat completely randomly at a restaurant. We decided to go to somewhere that didn't have English on the menus and didn't even have pictures. So what we did was get a menu and just randomly pointed to things on the menu. We ended up getting some kind of noodle soup and then this dish that included chicken's feet. So yeah, we ate chicken feet. Awesome.

Our penultimate day in Shanghai, we went to Zhujiajiao - the place that the Chinese call "China's Venice". Except, apparently it wasn't the Chinese Venice...we just thought it was. Anyway, it's an ancient town, 1700 or so years old, that is built on a river, and you have to take boats to get around. It obviously wasn't as stunning as Venice (though I've never been to Venice), but I thought it was interesting anyway. Perhaps appealing to different sensibilities, I think Zhujiajiao was one of Russ's favorite experiences (he of the affinity for Downtown Brown). Then we randomly met this guy in our hostel from Michigan. We drank beers, went to the cheapest bar we could find...pretty much what Americans do when they meet other Americans.

On our last day in Shanghai, we went to a museum called the Urban Planning Exhibition Center. It was another one of my favorite things that we've done/seen this whole trip. It was housed in an enormous building that was full of different exhibits about Shanghai's history, and how the city has evolved since it was founded, and the coolest part - all the cool things they have planned for its future. I'm serious...Shanghai is a really, really cool city and they have so many awesome things that they're planning for it. Crazy-awesome buildings, different events, and lots of other things. Anyway, that was definitely a highlight of our trip so far for me. After that we were walking around when these three random Chinese people, a guy and two girls, came up to us and started talking in English. They invited us to go drink tea with them. Naturally we went. They turned out to be very, very sweet people and we had tea with them. As much as I have despised tea in the past, I've gotta say: the tea we had was pretty amazing. There was a woman who used some fancy technique to pour the tea and explained to us how all numbers have special meanings. It was really cool to meet Chinese people and share that kind of cultural experience with them.

I quite liked Shanghai, though Russ is a bit more reserved in his praise. The two-day train ride to Western China acted as a nice divide between the first two weeks of our trip and the next two.

- Russ and Mike