Shanghai!

We arrived in Shanghai early in the morning, around 7:45 am. By the time we got a bearings straight and dropped off our luggage in the left luggage area at the Station, it was around 8:30. We decided that we would go to the Yu Yuan gardens first because it was a little bit out of the way and so we had to make our way over there. We took bus number 930 out to the Old City area and after asking around we found the entrance to the park. It was approximately 40 Yuan a piece but definitely worth it.

There were a bunch of little shops and stalls that we walked past and we made sure to look at the variety of different souvenirs and products that they were selling. It was similar to Hong Kong and the Silk Market but still cool.

We went into the park and we were just in awe of the beautiful scenery and ponds all around. I have pictures up on picasa but it was definitely a really cool place to visit in the area. The architecture was magnificent and it was carried out through all of the buildings in the area.

We walked out of the park area and down the street where all of these boutiques were you could see this older architecture all the way down the street but when you looked into the distance you could see the difference between this type of architecture and the newer buildings being put up in the distance. It was definitely really interesting.

Another interesting part of our adventure was when Sumana and I went into a shop inside the park itself to look at souvenirs or potential gifts for people. We saw these sandalwood fans that were pretty cool and they wanted to charge us a really high price. We said that we didn't want it because it was too much and they asked us if we wanted a receipt. If we did not want a receipt than they could bargain with us. Really interesting. We said that we didn't want a receipt to see how low they would go and when we still wanted to leave the ladies kind of followed us out and kept asking for "our price" to see if we could make a deal. Definitely really interesting and totally under the table.

We walked around some more, got some Dairy Queen (!!!) and then went in search of the bus to take us back to the city. We found the same bus and went back to People's Square to get back to the City.

The bus driver told us when to get off and we started roaming the area and took some pictures with the "people" in the square (statues) and then headed off down Nanjing Road toward the Bund. Nanjing Road reminded me of Las Ramblas, in Barcelona, without the bird sellers and the statue people. There were restaurants and stores all the way down the walking street. We headed past the end of the the walking street towards the Bund. We got to where the Bund was supposed to be and we found out that it was closed because it is under renovation for the Asia Expo that will be held in Shanghai in 2010. I was a little disappointed but we continued on our way to see the city from the other side of the river.

We got off at Pudong Avenue and attempted to find the view. It was definitely not there. We asked some local people where the "view" was and they were very confused. They tried to explain to us where we should go but we definitely did not understand. A crowd of like 6 people or so came out to all make an attempt to explain it to us and when we did not understand they explained that they would go and get someone that spoke "our language." They went to get him, asked us to follow, and when the man came outside he explained that we were at the wrong place (and we knew that). And then pointed us in the right direction. We headed off in that way. We met a Czech couple (maybe) along the way and we asked them if we were heading in the right direction (they had a map). We walked with them for quite a ways and found out that they were traveling around china for a good month or two. Fantastic! I wish I had that kind of time to just travel the world. I hope one day, I will. We left them and continued on our way. We weren't sure exactly where we were going but we asked a information desk person who spoke to us in Mandarin and then called his English speaking friend on the phone who told us that the view from this side of the river wasn't that spectacular but told us how to get there anyway.

We walked through a park that had the countdown to the Asia Expo running and walked toward the Oriental TV tower. It was gorgeous and a really cool building. It was also really expensive and we were low on cash so we stuck to walking around some more.

After we got our fair share of the area we headed back to the train station, picked up our luggage and then headed to Longyang Road to take the Maglev train over to the airport so we could catch our flight back to Shenzhen.

We arrived at the station, bought our ticket for the Maglev and went up to the platform. I am pretty upset that my camera ran out of batteries because I did not get a chance to take a picture of the train. It ran at 301 kilometers per hour (slow for the Maglev...we missed the fast train by like 10 minutes. That train runs at 431 kmph). We reached the aiport in about 9 or 10 minutes (19 miles away).

We checked our luggage in and then headed over to the gate. We left on time, got to Shenzhen, met a nice Pakistani man on the way to the MTR station who told us a story about how he invested in a fake company in China and how, when in business, we should always visit a site before we invest in it. Good to know. Slightly random for this story of my day but thats okay.

We went through the entire immigration process and arrived back at UST by midnight. Definitely a fun-filled trip and one of the best trips I have ever made.

Thanks to Elizabeth, Ben, Vinny, all of the local and random people along they way and especially Sumana for making this trip one to remember!