China ... Day 3

May 3rd

Woke up in Hong Kong
Spent the afternoon in Shanghai
Went to sleep on the way to Beijing

The sunrise from the airport in Hong Kong

(yea, it was THAT early)

We took an EARLY morning flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai so we would have the entire day to spend in the city before catching the overnight train to Beijing. This was definitely the best idea for maximizing our time and not sleeping away all of China, but let me tell you ... when the alarm was going off in the fours after going to bed sometime in the twos, I was NOT happy. Of course it didn't last that long and we did manage to get some more sleep ... I think Daniel & I were both soundly sleeping (in the most comfortable way we could manage) before the plane actually took off. :)

Yet another health check ...

So the swine flu was definitely the hot news topic during the time we were in China and every English newspaper we found had 'SWINE FLU' headlines and pictures of pigs eating people and all other ridiculously blown out of proportion graphics and articles. Each time we landed we had to fill out a health check and then hold our breath to prevent us from coughing or sneezing as we exited the aircraft and approached the 'doctors' and health officials that were waiting to take our temperature and pass out facemasks. We had read so many articles and heard multiple stories about people (especially Americans) being quarantined at the airports because they appeared to be 'sick'. We were already attracting so much attention for just being American, that we really went overboard trying to look normal and 'unsickly'. Lucky for us, we didn't get stopped beyond the standard check. Whew.

Daniel and I had mapped out our afternoon in Shanghai and decided to start with The Bund. We knew that this area was considered one of the most touristy areas in Shanghai, but that was about it. Once we got there we realized that it was an area along the Huangpu River that consisted of a stretch of land approximately a mile long with 52 buildings from corporate buildings to banks to hotels. The buildings have all sorts of different architectural styles, most of which did not resemble anything Asian.

A small part of The Bund:

We spent the afternoon getting food in the park, walking along the river area and taking an underground 'people's tunnel' (that went under the river) to the other side of to a shopping area called Nanjing Road.

We walked along Nanjing Road, the main shopping street in Shanghai, from The Bund all the way to People's Square. We found all sorts of wild stuff while taking in Shanghai ...

Including a Yoshinoya!! :)

Nanjing Road is considered the world's longest shopping district, as well as one of the busiest. Apparently it attracts over 1 million visitors daily.

And I believe that.

(I also believe there are 1 million Chinese flags)

We also spent some time in People's Park which I later learned used to be part of the Shanghai horse racing course before the Communist government banned gambling and horse racing around 1950.

There may not have been horses, but there were more flags!

We decided to try our hand a real, authentic Chinese restaurant for dinner. This was being a little adventurous because the place we decided to stop at had limited pictures on the menu, absolutely zero English and the server looked at us like we were nuts when we walked in. Great (in the most sarcastic tone possible). We used our best, nonexistent Mandarin to order some sort of chicken something or another. From the looks of what everyone else had, it kind of looked like soup that was on fire with vegetables and BEER. I could do a liquid dinner if worst came to worst. :)

We ended up with this:

Everything tasted really good. We watched everyone else to learn that we were supposed to put all of the vegetables and ingredients into the pot (with the chicken) and wait a little bit. So we drank our huge TsingTaos (I still don't understand how every time we order a TsingTao it comes in a different bottle, but whatever ... beers beer) and waited for our collection of edible to cook. After the initial bite I was impressed. The flavor was really good, although I could never describe it, and the vegetables were normal-ish ... I didn't have to use my beer to choke it down, so that was a good sign. It wasn't until I started eating the 'chicken' that I was a little afraid of what was actually in the pot. There were so many bones and like every bite you took felt like you were eating some part of a bird that wasn't meant to be eaten. Like they plucked the feathers, laid the bird down, chopped it up and put it in our pot. Everything on the plates in the picture is inedible. I'm pretty sure if we would have had the time, we could have assembled the entire chicken again ... kind of like what we did with the mouse bones in the owl pellets Gutherie Center style. Yea, just like that. It was gross. AND there were two chicken feet in the pot. Like the whole claw. Nails and all. Sick.

The overall feeling in Shanghai was different from that of Hong Kong. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were now in mainland China and more a part of the 'Communist, kind of crazy China' (which definitely isn't the case in Hong Kong, obviously) or that now everyone was speaking a completely different language (Mandarin as opposed to Cantonese) or the fact that we were expected to eat chicken's feet, or that things just weren't as 'easy' as they were in Hong Kong. Whatever it was, it was definitely different. I was developing a liking to Shanghai, but I wouldn't say I was in love with it like I was with HK. I can tell you what I was in love with though ...

Daniel and I had decided to use the overnight train as our way of getting from Shanghai to Beijing and back again. We really had no idea what to expect from this train ride, all we knew was that it was going to last 10 hours and that we were tired. I was just praying for pillow.

Not only did I get a pillow ... I got a bed, blankets, slippers, bottled water, a tv AND flowers all in our own personal room - that had a lock on the door!! The rooms are designed for four people, but we got lucky and didn't have to deal with any randoms.

AND there was an actual real, clean, complete bathroom. Don't even get me started on the bathrooms/toilets/closets/holes people use in China. Just know that they were so bad that I almost shed a tear when I saw the normalness that was on the train.

Daniel and I were so excited about the sleeping arrangements ... Who would have thought that our best night of sleep thus far was going to happen on the overnight train?

I posted more pictures of our Shanghai adventure on facebook.

Click here - Shanghai

much love

-tara-

xx