再见 Shanghai

Instead of the usual "i'm so sad to leave...time is passing too quickly...etc etc" post, I figured I'll share my thoughts with this instead (it was written for my creative writing class here, but this fits the mood, so I'll share it).  

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Ode to Shanghai (Based off of Laura Steiner's Ode to New York)

To the city that I have had the pleasure to call my home for awhile,

Shanghai is the New York City of the East, it’s where life and death meet at each street corner, it’s the expats having lunch at the upscale Mr. and Mrs. Bund, it’s the younger marketing and PR professionals having brunch in the French Concession, it’s the older generation still striving to maintain their slowly dying language, it’s the 87^th floor of Park Hyatt in Pudong with a breathtaking skyline view, it’s the tourists, commuters, expats, students, it’s everything you don’t expect to see in a Chinese city. 

Shanghai is neighborhood.  It’s getting an egg crepe, with two eggs, scallions, radishes, cilantro, hot sauce, and a Chinese donut wrapped inside a crepe shell, in the morning from the skilled couple on Ding Xi Road, it’s the fruit stand lady on Anhua Road who loves to chat about more than which fruits are in season.  It is the chowfun lady on some street I can’t remember, who has to endure with drunken students on weekend nights.  If you’re lucky, they all just might remember who you are, and make your experience that much more rewarding.

Shanghai is food.  It’s where the soup from the xiaolongbao dripping from your mouth is normal, it’s knowing that Greek, Japanese, French, and American foods are all accessible by delivery, it’s knowing that a street full of food carts will only set you back $5, it’s going to KFC and coming out with an egg tart, it’s the ability to have a family style dinner that costs $2 per person.

Shanghai is an experience.  It’s seeing a baby pee on the streets and no one else around you cares, it’s a walk through Zhongshan Park before 10am and seeing the grandparents dancing and singing, and their grandchildren carelessly running around, it’s spending a Saturday in People’s Square wandering through the marriage market, overhearing a parent question: “Does your son have a house or a car, because that’ll be my deciding factor?” (of course, this is said in Chinese). It’s where Jing’an temple will be in the middle of a sea of modern office buildings.  It’s spending a day at the fake market exhausting any and all bargaining abilities you thought you had or didn’t have.  

Shanghai is having everything you can think of at the tip of your fingertips.  It’s East Nanjing Road where malls meet street vendors trying to sell detachable wheels for your shoes.  It’s being surrounded by people constantly, yet knowing that exploring alone and at peace is still an option. 

Shanghai started off as the city I never wanted to be in, a city I despised.  It eventually became a safe haven from traveling around China, a comfort in hearing the mandarin with a southern accent, understanding more than I ever will in other parts of China.  It’s finding comfort in the little things, knowing that if I can’t read the menu, I can just ask and get what I want.  It’s the first place that told me I couldn’t possibly be American because I look Chinese.

Shanghai is where there is too much too do and too little time.  You’ll want to tell all your friends about it, but they won’t understand.  Your explanation will be useless unless they can experience this city on their own.  It’s like New York City in a way where feelings overpower what you see. The sights and sounds will all be a blur, but the state of mind you have achieved will always be there.

You’ll go home and realize that even with the amount of time you had, you didn’t manage to experience Shanghai to the fullest.  No one ever will.  People will say that you can go back to Shanghai anytime, but the next time you go, it might just be a completely new city, an ever changing city.  Shanghai, like its people, will push ahead ruthlessly; keep up, because it won’t wait for anyone.  

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Below will be a compilation of a few of our many unforgettable adventures from study abroad with these 朋友's (friends), from KTV, to dying on the steps of Huangshan, to lasertag, to climbing the Great Wall, to those nights we actually can't remember...  Everything about this semester will be missed.  <3  

***this may be the last post of Shanghai, but hopefully it won't be the last post of this blog

Weekend Trip: Beijing (北京）

I couldn't possibly leave China without visiting the capital and the Great Wall, so four of us, Marissa, Alexis, Phil, and I, decided to cram a Beijing weekend trip in right before finals as our last hurrah for studying abroad in China. 

Beijing, the capital of China, surrounded by the Hebei Province, is the second largest city behind Shanghai in terms of urban population.  It is the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China.  Pollution is suppose to be the worst in Beijing; however, we were fortunate and had better air quality than Shanghai on the days we were there.

Apologizes ahead of time for the lack of information in this post; it will mostly be a picture post.

High Speed Train (G-Train)

For our trip, we decided to take the high speed train (HSR-high speed rail) there and fly back, just to experience China's HSR once.  China's HSR is very similar to Taiwan's.  However, a few differences are that Taiwan's has three price classifications; business class, reserved seats, and non-reserved seats; whereas, China's just has first and second class and the setup/bathrooms are a bit different.  For the most part, everything else is the same. The one aspect that I like about Taiwan's better is the luggage space that is located in the front of each train segment, since it makes it easier to have larger suitcases.   

 Summer Palace (颐和园)

Once we arrived in Beijing, we checked into our hostel, Sanlitun International Youth Hostel.  The location was very convenient, located right next to the subway station, expats residency, restaurants, and shops.  The hostel's "concierge" was extremely helpful; they tweaked my itinerary and showed us how to get everywhere and recommended us a few places to go.

Our first stop, Summer Palace.  The Summer Palace mainly consists of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake.  Since 1998, it has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.    

Marissa and Alexis

I believe this is Kunming Lake.

Summer Palace 

Olympic Park

Not too sure, why but somehow, Olympic Park and the Great Wall were on equal levels of "I have to see it while in Beijing" for me.  It's probably just the water cube that caused my excitement; the Beijing Olympics will always be a historical moment...at least in the swimming world, considering 25 world records were broken, Michael Phelps made history, and more importantly where Nathan Adrian made his first Olympic appearance, just saying.  

Ex-swimmers at the Water cube (made me miss it a little).

Beijing National Stadium: Bird's Nest

Temple of Heaven (天坛)

The Temple of Heaven is a collection of religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of Central Beijing.  Many Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties held annual ceremonies for prayers to Heaven to ask for good harvest.     

Marissa, Phil, me, and Alexis

Temple of Heaven

Bian Yi Fang (Lunch)

You can't say you've been to Beijing without eating Beijing Roast Duck.  There are two famous places that people recommended to us: Bian Yi Fang and Da Dong.  We just happened to be closer to Bian Yi Fang, so we went there, but both locations are easily accessible by subway.

Lunch is served.

So much duck...

Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City 

Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world, with the Tiananmen Gate separating the Square from the Forbidden City.  The Gate was built during the Ming Dynasty and has since been the site of numerous political and student protests, which made the location a revolutionary icon.  

View of the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square.

Pictured above is the secret police.

The Forbidden City is ...actually a city.  It took us many hours to walk from the front gate to the back gate, and sadly everything eventually started to look the same.

    

Wangfujing

Wangfujing is one of Beijing's most famous shopping streets.  However, the main "shopping" we did was for food, since Wangfujing is also considered to be a night market.  The reasons that people stop by this street is for exotic foods such as fried scorpions, centipedes, starfish, and everything else you would never think to eat.  I mean there are normal things, such as fruit, dumplings, fried noodles, but why would you go all the way to Beijing just for normal food, why not be adventurous and try a bug or two? Jk...we didn't try anything exotic.    

Centipedes, spiders, some other insects that I'd rather not know about.

Starfish...yummy? We'll never know...

The Great Wall

The one and only reason (besides the Water Cube, but that's an exception) we wanted to visit Beijing was probably the Great Wall.  Due to the length of the history of the wall, please just check wiki, :) but as for my experience, here goes: 

The most popular section of the Great Wall is Badaling, which is also the most crowded and recently re-constructed section, considering that that section has stair rails; therefore, we DID NOT want to go there.  We wanted to go to the section that people rarely go to, Jinshanling, which is also 3 hours outside of Beijing located in the Hebei province.  This section is probably the most preserved section of the Great Wall, practically stair less after 30 mins into our climb. 

We booked a tour that included transportation there and back, breakfast, and lunch, but we had to pay for our own admission.

Finally get to check visiting the Great Wall off my bucket list. 

Literally "climbing" the wall, since there really were't any stairs.

One of the Great Wonders of the World. Check!

HouHai 

HouHai is one of the three lakes that make up Shichahai.  We finished off our trip here at a small pub like cafe with a spectacular view.  One of Beijing's many nightlife, cafe, and restaurant scenes surround HouHai.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend trip.  Everything was absolutely perfect, down to the people I was traveling with: the weather was gorgeous, pollution levels were low, we didn't get ripped off, we managed to see everything we wanted to see, transportation wasn't a hassle at all, and the hostel's "concierge" was beyond helpful and patient with all my questions.

Go Team Panda Cats!

Hotelies Doing What We Do Best

For Chloe's 21st Birthday, we decided to head over to Pudong for a classy, girl's night celebration.  Here's what our night consisted of: 

View of the Pearl Tower from the bridge to the IFC mall.

We started the night off at Morton's Steakhouse in the IFC mall.  Happy hour at Morton's Steakhouse consists of buying one drink from their selected list and getting unlimited filet mignon sliders with the drink (5-7pm weekdays if anyone is curious).  

Chloe and I have been talking about going to a hotel rooftop bar since the beginning of the year, so we finally decided to check that off our to-do list, by heading over to the Ritz-Carlton Pudong's Flair.  Before going, we did our research, and somehow there were comments that said that Flair did not meet people's expectations of service quality that the Ritz is known to have, so we decided to lower our expectations and just go for the amazing view.  However, when we got there, everything was perfect.  The view was probably the best I've seen thus far, the service matched that of the Ritz, and it wasn't too crowded when we went so we had the option to sit anywhere we wanted (they also provided blankets and jackets to those who might get cold while sitting outside).

We tried to be artsy with the drinks...

Cheers to your 21st Birthday, Chloe!