And now, as promised...

I'll try to keep this recap of Shanghai as brief and enjoyable as possible.

On Saturday we arrived bright and early via the hard sleeper train. Note to Chinese smokers: smoking in-between cars still makes the entire car smell! Also, if the train does not arrive at the station until 8am, why does everyone still get up at 6am? Not necessary.

Our first item on the agenda was to go on field trips for our classes, so our media class went to the Youth News Group (which publishes several youth newspapers and a magazine) and then jetted over to Shanghai TV where we wandered around their news set. Both were pretty predictable: the newspaper offices were poorly decorated and employees dressed casually, though this being China and the newspaper having once been founded/supported by Mao himself, the journalists were all pretty conservative in their viewpoints. We didn't get to talk to any people at the TV station so I'm not sure on their views, but it was clear that working in TV is much more glamorous and higher paid (obviously). There was nothing exciting to report except that STV recently launched a new channel called SC1 that basically only shows foreign TV shows because they are much more exciting than any Chinese programs. (This is sadly true. Chinese TV consists of "news", period dramas, bad variety shows, and music concerts).

After that we had dinner and then were free until Monday morning. Naturally we went down to the Bund and took many many photographs while we were harassed by many many salespeople. Then we walked up Nanjing Road, which is like the Wangfujin area of Shanghai so it has lots of fancy shops (but not too high end). We got to the endish, had a beer, and called it a night.

Sunday we had lots of plans. First stop: Shanghai Museum at the People's Square. It was very well done, kinda small, but free so it was worth it. All Chinese ancient artwork and basically I wanted to steal the entire ceramic exhibit. The hall of minorities was pretty cool too, especially the map that showed all 50 of the minorities and which part of China they live in. Yes, I am a nerd. Yes, I really want to go to Yunnan.

Anyway then we walked down Huaihai Road which is the 5th Ave of Shanghai. We found a little French deli in a nice mall and I had a tuna panini for lunch. Amazing! So we continued our pursuit of French things in Shanghai by heading south to the old French concession. On our way we stopped at Fuxing Park and ended up staying there for a couple hours because it was just so beautiful. The best/strangest part was when we sat on the grass playing spoons and all these Chinese people started gathering around us, just leaning over and staring at our game. I guess they were trying to figure out what we were doing bc when we started playing Egyptian ratscrew they left for more interesting sights, saying they already knew that game. Weirdddd!

The bestest bestest part of the day was stumbling upon a little area called Tianzifang in the French Concession. It's a slice of old Shanghai with all these cool boutiques, coffee shops, and bars. I bought a journal that I bargained down two whole kuai and got some extra cards thrown in. My skills are astounding, I know. Well unfortunately although this was undoutbedly the coolest place ever, we had plans to meet up with Cathy (my studying-in-Shanghai pengyou) for dinner near the Pearl Tower, so we had to get back to the subway.

May I just warn anyone needing to take the subway from People's Square at 5.30pm that this is probably going to be the most ridiculous too-many-people-in-one-underground-area experience of your life. But we made it, and we made it on time, and then we had a delicious lunch at the high class shopping mall opposite the Pearl Tower. After dinner we wanted to go up the tower but it turned out to be a 150 yuan fee, so that didn't happen. And we wanted to find another building to go up but they were all on the other side of the river, so alas we called it a night.

Monday we had class in the morning, wherein several Shanghai university journalism students stopped by and told us how great and propaganda-full the Chinese media is. And by tell us I mean they showed us with their blatant acknowledgement that journalists are the mouthpieces of the government... and no one cares. Awesome for the future of Chinese media, right?

Basically the entire class I was thinking: can we please leave so I can go shopping now? K thanks. So once we were let out we headed over to the most famous tourist area in Shanghai: the Yu Gardens. It's a really old maze of gardens surrounded by a huge bazaar full of people, overpriced shops, stinky tofu, and more people. Needless to say after all the hype I was not overly impressed, and though the gardens themselves were cool, the hoardes of tourist groups clogging up the paths kinda ruined the mood. Also I am sad to report that the American tourists were terribly easy to spot because they were both poorly dressed and overweight. Sigh.

We accidentally walked down Old Shanghai Road on our way out in search of a taxi, and it was pretty cool. The shops were much more Chinese and it seemed like normal (Shanghai?) people actually shopped there, instead of other Chinese people on holiday. Skipping forward in time... we headed back out later to meet Cathy for dinner near Nanjing East Rd and had some yummy Singaporean food. Then we had some drinks at a couple bars, went in search of a dance club and failed miserably, and went back home. After all the hype about Shanghai bars and the clubbing scene, either we really struck out or the scene actually isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Quickly, I will get to the end of this too-long recap: Next day took the D bullet train to Nanjing. Had 7ish hours to kill there so went into the city center and walked around the giant shopping area. Bought two Chinese books: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter. Actually Charlie is a pretty easy read... good to know I have the Chinese reading level equivalent to an elementary school child. Then took the soft sleeper back to Beijing where we arrived Wednesday morning to witness the throngs of Chinese tour groups descending upon Tiananmen for the National Holiday. You can't get away from the tourists, you really can't.

Final note: Internet is down momentarily so further posting will commence once it has been fixed. Hopefully within a day but I can't make any promises.

Dalian, China's "green" city

Don't worry, I made it back alive and almost in one piece! Traveling via train in China on my own was definitely an experience, and I'd feel pretty confident having to do it again, but I definitely learned some things along the way. Like, don't ever ever travel overnight by hard seat (which was all they had left by Friday for my return trip on Sunday). And hard sleeper is not the epitome of luxury, but it's definitely doable and preferable to the other options.

My journey started at the train station, where I waited in this line:

Yup, this is a line in China. It didn't make sense to me because we all had assigned beds/seats, but there was a wild crush to get on first. (Of course on the way back I learned not everyone had a seat and storage space was limited. Oh how blissfully naive I was with my hard sleeper ticket). We left at 10pm and arrived the next morning at 8, when Cheng and his aunt met me at the station.

Then Cheng and I went off to the seaside for some grand Dalian canguan. Which, coincidentally, does not mean there is a giant shopping mall, it means we did some touristy things.
Suffice it to say, but 2pm we had had lunch and we a little bored of walking around and taking pictures. So we went and sang karaoke for a couple hours, then headed back to Cheng's aunt's apartment for some home cooked foods. My favorite. But first! There was a Walmart across the street from the apartment, and I had to go.

Look, Cheng's head is bigger than a watermelon! Haha :) Wo ai ni!

But back to the story. We had a wonderful meal with his aunt and her 15 year old daughter Yanhua. Yanhua was cool to talk to because for the most part, I could understand her Chinese. And at dinner they asked me what I thought of China, so I got to break out my newly learned sentence patterns: Wo di yige yingxiang shi... etc etc. And they wanted to know what the West was commonly saying about China, and all that. I've noticed that I can have good conversations in Chinese as long as there is someone else around to help translate/do most of the talking. I like to listen to people talk in Chinese and try and figure out what they are saying. But more and more I'm trying to figure out how to express my own ideas, though this usually takes too much time and by the time I have a thought formed in Chinese in my mind, the conversation has already shifted. Oh well, I try.

We watched the opening ceremony for the Para-Olympics on TV and then I passed out. I still have that annoying song stuck in my head though: Women yiqi qi fei!!!!!! Well, at least Andy Lau was there, that was pretty cool. Couldn't compare to the regular Olympics though, but it was pretty cool to watch. I wished so badly to be back in Beijing then, watching the fireworks from Tiananmen or something. Hmmm maybe the closing ceremony...

The next day Cheng's aunt took us shopping. OMG it was madness. It seemed like every single person in Dalian descended upon the mall that day. We braved the crowds for a little while, and I got an impulse manicure, but then I had had enough. Since there's nothing I really need to buy right now, meandering through the stalls and crowds wasn't very appealing. So we stopped by a friend's tea shop and drank some green tea. The way they brew the tea is really interesting, and we sat there for awhile, sipping from our tiny cups, eating pumpkin seeds, and shooting the breeze. The tea shop owners' 6 year old daughter was running around the mall and I absolutely loved her. I wanted to take pics of her but she wouldn't let me. However, she did point and every person and tell me to take pics of them, and then she would laugh and be like, "wo zhao le ni!" Adorable. Here's one that she made me take:
Cheng and his aunt. Now, don't even get me started on the train ride back. It was just awful. There was not much space for those of us sitting, and some people didn't even have seats and were just standing the whole time. For like 10 hours! Our train was also apparently a local (not express) because ever hour or so we'd stop somewhere and more people would get on. Crazy. Also, the air conditioning was blasting and I was wearing shorts and a tank top, so that just made it even less easy to fall asleep. Fortunately the man next to me took pity on my and offered to switch seats so I could sleep by the window (instead of the the middle of two people (and the other guy was really fat so he took up a lot of space)). He said this in Chines and when I got up and was like, Hao xie xie, some other guy was like, Oh it's like she understood! Yes, actually, I can understand some Chinese... but I didn't say that. I was too exhausted and had mentally given up on the situation to try and make any conversation, so I left everyone else assume I was a stupid foreigner with no Chinese skills. Oh well. I couldn't stop thinking about my hard sleeper bed on the way there and how much I missed it... even imagining scenarios where I stole into the hard sleeper cabin and paid someone 150 kuai to trade tickets with me. But alas, I stuck it out, and by 6.30 am the next day (today) was safely tucked into my own bed back in the dorm... only to wake up for class 2.5 hours later. Needless to say, I think I'll stay in Beijing and enjoy the sights around here next weekend (and Cheng will be back by then, anyway). But I'm glad I went, because of the cool people that I met in Dalian, even though Dalian itself seemed a little bland.