Since I am preparing to head to Shanghai again, I thought I would post my entry from my summer travel blog. In this post I disclose on of my travel secrets, which is especially important in China.
We arrived at 6 am, and were immediately disgusted by the heat and humidity. Yuck, yuck, yuck – it’s like swimming through the air.
Despite the weather, it was exciting to be back. Our former professor booked us a room at East China Normal University, which is where Aman, Adam, and I studied two years ago. It was great to be back. We went to some of our favorite spots to eat, met old teachers, and had a lot of time to relax.
Since we had seen a lot of the major sites in Shanghai, we left a lot of the decision making up to Darren, who had never been. The first place we headed was Pudong, which absolutely incredible. The newly constructed Jin Mao Tower and World Financial Center are among the tallest buildings in the world. Aman and Darren got a good view of them from the Pearl Tower, but Adam and I decided to save the money since we had already been.
Adam and I were strolling along the river deciding whether we should hang out, or go check out some of the famous hotels. Suddenly, we had no choice but to do the later. Let me explain.
That morning (morning = 2:30 pm because we stayed out so late the night before partying with some UVA kids) we had food from one of the food salesmen near the back gate of the school. When we were at ECNU in 2006, that was our favorite place (well, Aman and I) to eat, so it was a great feeling being back. We did not have problems with his normal dish (meat, bread, lettuce, and hot stuff), but this time we decided to try something new – dumplings. The dumplings were fried, which means they were served for breakfast, which means they had been sitting out since that morning, which means they were not too clean. The power of the dumplings all hit us at the same time, and we had major stomach issues to deal with. Adam and I ran over to the Shangri La to ‘check it out’, which included a trip to their nice bathrooms…and nice they were, especially compared to the squatters you find in the dirty public bathrooms.
After that little adventure, we met up with Aman and Darren and headed over to the Grand Hyatt, which is in the Jin Ma tower. It is an awesome hotel, with a bar on the 86th floor. While having a beer (expensive, by all standards), you get an amazing view of Shanghai, and all of the crazy development that is taking place. The one down side is the pollution/humidity mix, but it is still worthwhile.
The next day, I had to take care of some logistical things, so Adam and Darren went around Shanghai, and Aman headed to the market. Since I was hanging around ECNU, I had time to meet up with a friend of ours from ECNUÂ and her friend. They helped me print and fax and important document, and then hung out with me while we were waiting for the others to return. When they did, we all headed out to Xin Tiandi (famous street in Shanghai) for some Thai food.
During that time, I got a call from one of the guys we met in Qingdao. He (JJ) is an American that was teaching in South Korea for one year (during which time he took a trip to North Korea!). He is an awesome guy, and we were able to meet up with him at the restaurant before heading out to bars. Adam and Aman had some things to take care of, so it was just Darren, JJ, and I that hit the town.
We stopped at the first ‘Beer Garden’ we saw near the restaurant, but left after a drink because it was expensive. We then jumped into a cab and headed to a street with a Blue Frogs, and had a couple pitchers of beer and some shooters. The shooters are all named after important people, events, and things. There was a drink special, so we each got two shooters. We all ordered a Mao Zedong and one other. My other was a “Lee Kuan Yew”, which I had to order because he is the former Prime Minister of Singapore. Following those drinks, we left for the bar next door, which was its own little surprise.
When we walked into the bar, we were immediately surrounded by women…and I knew what that meant. They took our orders, then attempted to get as close as they could. Recognizing what kind of place this was, I pulled out my cell phone, looked at the time, and told the other guys that we needed to get out of there as soon as possible to ‘meet our friends’. The girl next to me kept saying things to me in Chinese…which I will leave to the reader’s imagination. We finished the beers, and got the hell out of there.
The rest of the night was spent jumping from bar to bar, until eventually we headed back to ECNU. We woke up late the next morning, and boarded a train headed to Chongqing.
Comments on this entry are closed.