After a busy first two months of school, I am finally getting around to writing again! I keep putting writing on my to-do list but it has a lower priority so it usually is the first thing to go when I am busy or tired.
The main event of the last two months was my trip during the National Holiday. National Holiday begins on October first. This year we had 9 days off school! Vincy, my Chinese coworker who shares an office with the foreign teachers, and I made plans to go to Shanghai. We flew to Shanghai on the fourth and back on the eighth. We flew out of Guangzhou which is the capitol city of Guangdong province and is about 1.5 hours away from Zhongshang. For me this trip was my first time traveling out of Guangdong in China. I am including Macau and Hong Kong as part of Guangdong, though they aren’t really.
Seeing Shanghai was one of the best decisions of my time in China. When I got back home, I randomly saw an article online about the top 10 cities to visit in China and Shanghai is number 1 so I guess I’ve already taken care of that. Though, I would go back in a heartbeat. If I ever decide to come back to China, I will definitely look for a job in Shanghai. So, you may ask, what is it about Shanghai that makes it so great? Let me answer that for you.
To me Shanghai was amazing because of the architecture. The architecture of the city shows the fusion of two cultures. On one side of the river is the old town. A lot of the old town was built by Westerners in the 1800s and the style of buildings greatly reflect this. Old brick and stone buildings of a kind that are no longer built are scattered throughout that part of Shanghai but they are concentrated along one side of the river. This area is called the Bund and it is beautiful. On the other side of the river is the modern, financial district. This area has two of the world’s tallest towers. The Shanghai Tower is the second tallest building in the world and the World Financial Center is in the top 10. Standing on the promenade of the Bund I could look ahead and see the flashing, colorful lights of the new China making the modern district brilliant with lights. I could turn around and be reminded of my home in the West with 19th century buildings which are glowing in their own softer light. Past and future are held together in Shanghai and in my opinion any city that can still tastefully incorporate its past is a great city.
On Sunday night and Monday, Vincy and I explored most of the main tourist attractions in Shanghai. Those days we visited the Bund, Yuyuan Garden and the walking street or Nanjing Road. These tourists spots were super, super crowded. I don’t think I had ever experienced an overcrowded place until then but they were worth seeing. The Yuyuan Garden is a traditional Chinese garden that has beautiful greenery, traditional buildings and ponds. The area around the Garden is a shopping center of buildings in the traditional Chinese style. That was interesting to see but also funny when I saw a Dairy Queen in a traditional Chinese building!
On Tuesday and Wednesay, Vincy and I joined a tour group to see some cities near Shanghai. On Tuesday we visited Suzhou and on Wednesday we visited Wuzhen. Suzhou is famous for many things. It is a city of canals, traditional gardens and silk. While we were there we took a boat trip on the main canal, visited two gardens and saw a silk factory. At Wuzhen we spent the day in an ancient water town. This town has been preserved and is now a historical park like Williamsburg, Virginia. We walked up and down the old streets where people still live. Vincy and I relaxed by the canal and took a lot of photos of the town because it looked very picturesque with the old buildings and the canal.
There were three unfortunate facts about joining the tour groups. The first is that I felt super conspicuous the whole time. I was the only foreigner in the group and being white just made me stand out more. In fact, at one point when we forgot which bus we were on, Vincy asked the driver if his bus was the one with the foreigner on it. The second is that we didn’ have to freedom to do what we wanted to. I really wanted to explore the city of Suzhou but we had to do the scheduled activities. Finally, as part of a tour group we were required to see some exhibitions of jade, crystal and silk. The Silk exhibition was informative, I learned something about how silk is processed. But the jade and crystal exhibitions were just trying to get us to buy their products. It felt like a complete waste of time. However, on the positive side we didn’t have to do any planning with the tour groups, we could just follow along and not worry about anything. Plus we did get some interesting information from the tour guides.
On Wednesday night, when we got back to Shanghai from the tours, we checked into our last hotel, the Astor. This hotel was one of the first hotels in China. It was built in the first half of the 19th century with grey stones. It is right on the Bund and has both a beautiful exterior and interior. That night we went to the Pearl Tower on the other side of the river in the modern financial district. The Pearl Tower used to be a broadcasting tower and it was the first skyscraper in Shanghai. Now it is simply an observation tower. Going up in the Pearl Tower is the one thing everyone who visits Shanghai is supposed to do. We went at 9pm and for some reason it wasn’t crowded at all. We paid to see both the main and the higher observation levels. After taking pictures of the wonderful night view of Shanghai, we descended and walked back to our hotel. The next day we left Shanghai.
While on our trip 3 events happened that Vincy and I will probably joke about for the rest of our lives. The first event happened almost immediately upon our arrival. We found the hotel that one of Vincy’s friends booked for us. When we tried to check in we were turned away because the hotel doesn’t accept foreigners. We were both flabbergasted and Vincy called her friend to work out a solution. As we were leaving the hotel, we saw another guest walk in with a dog on a leash. This prompted us to say that at this hotel, dogs are welcome but foreigners are not!
The second event happened while were traveling with the tour groups. On Tuesday night the tour group company booked us a hotel in Suzhou. When we arrived at the hotel, it looked a little shady. The lobby was shabby, run down and dirty. We were actually surprised when we found an elevator. Our room wasn’t much better. We were met with bright pink walls of a tasteless color, light fixtures that were out and a very dirty bathroom. The bathroom door wouldn’t even close! The latch was broken and the door kept swinging inward. When we left the hotel, more like a roadside motel, we noticed that the rooms cost only 70 yuan a night. That is just over 10 dollars. Cheapest hotel I have ever slept in.
The last hilarious event was when we decided to walk back to the Astor hotel after the Pearl Tower. We used a navigation app to help us find a route and the app indicated that we would have to cross a bridge. Which made sense since we were on the other side of the river. But we looked and looked for this bridge and couldn’t find it at all. So finally we asked a parking attendant and he directed us toward a tunnel. The tunnel to the other side of the river was actually a 50 yuan ride and it was the only way to cross the river without taking the subway or a taxi! So you have to pay in some fashion to cross the river! How ridiculous! We took the ride because we didn’t feel like finding the subway. The ride was the lamest ride I have ever paid 9 dollars for. We just sat in a carriage that rode down a track through a tunnel with scary music and flashing lights.
Despite some of the strange events we experienced, Shanghai was a great city to see! Furthermore, the weather felt more like the crisp autumn air I am used to back home which was a nice break from the humidity of Guangdong.
The Undiscovered Country 