Xia wu hao,
This is our last day in Shanghai and there are computers here. This may or may not be my last email from this email address so email Riley if you wish to reach me. Three out of five days we've been here it has rained. Thankfully today is is nice and sunny. Our next stop is Huang Shan where we will start our hiking adventures.
We went to four main spots in Shanghai:
1. Huxingting Teahouse (Old City shanghai): There were many shops to buy things (mai dongxi) and where there are shops there are salespeople in our faces trying to sell umbrellas, watches or purses, and these funny skating things you put on your shoes. But it's funny cause someone will walk by for a while and then stop and suddenly hold out a card and try to sell you something.
2. Oriental Pearl TV tower: It is about 450m tall. The third tallest tv tower in the world I believe. It was a very foggy night when we went making it look eerie from the outside of it but impossible to see the skyline from the inside. We went up to the 250m ball and took a walk on the glass platform. Even in the fog it made some of us nervous to walk knowing we are 250m above ground and all that's between us and the ground is the glass. There is a rollercoaster in the tower and an arcade as well. Riley and I took the central elevator down.
The tower is on the Pudong New Area. There are two sides of Shanghai divided by the HuangPu River: Pudong New Area and the Bund. All of it lights up at night even the boats light up. Even some of the roads have blue or green lights underneath that light up. We went to the Bund again on a day that wasn't foggy and saw the building light up one by one as it got darker.
We could only see half of the world's third largest building in the world (Shanghai World Financial Center---look it up) the rest of it was hidden by fog. We could see the rest of it the next day.
The Bund is old Shanghai. It was considered the heart of colonial Shanghai with hotels, banks, offices, and clubs that were grandiose symbols of western commercial power. The area has been redeveloped for the 2010 World expo. We heard there was a crazy amount of people there.
3. Nanjing Road: It's Shanghai's foremost shopping street located on the Bund. Many malls to shop. I guess I could compare it to New York but I've never been there. There were more people on skates selling skates.
4. Shanghai Museum: Looks on the outside were deceiving as it was very nice on the inside. It is huge with about eleven different galleries of Chinese culture. In the time given, Riley and I managed to get to the jade, landscape painting, pottery, ethnic minorities (different clothing and masks), and furniture gallery. As we took our last group picture outside, ms. kite lady came running by behind the picture taker holding her kite in the air. She saw a great opportunity to sell her kites to some of us because we're foreigners and look like we could use kites. Unfortunately, she wouldn't bargain and none of us wanted to spend money so she sold none.
Our second-month trip will be very different from our first-month trip. First month we went to the popular cities of china, learned chinese, visited gardens and experienced a lot of the business side of china (food, clothes, and transportation). Second month we will experience the more country side of China and see the landscapes.
So far Riley and I love the food! Thank God we haven't gotten sick from the food but we are more careful with what meat we eat. We've had many funny experiences including learning TaiChi dancing with the chinese women aross the river then teaching them salsa, teaching a chinese man who knew no english how to play cards, and stories of the Toast man.
We hope we can find a way to upload pictures and also that our camera works again for this second half of our trip. Please continue to pray for our safe travels!
Love,
Diane and Riley
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