Kicking off my 3 week break in between semesters in Thailand is Shanghai. Although I traveled to Hong Kong with my family when I was 16 I had never been to mainland China until this trip... nor was I particularly planning on going here while in Thailand, but alas, it was fate, and I definitely don't regret it.
We left BKK at 2am and arrived in Shanghai Pudong Airport at 7am. After a brief argument with the hostel staff we were finally allowed to crash on some beds and make up for some sleep we had missed while traveling overnight + jet lag. The only condition was we had to sleep on beds with sheets that had not been cleaned yet from the previous guests. This is one of those 'I know this is not the most sanitary thing in the world but I would do anything to just sleep right now' kind of moments. I mean, really, how dirty could they have been (?!?!). Whatever, no one caught any diseases and we all slept soundly for another 5 hours.
Later that afternoon we met up with Barr and Rochelle's friend Gianmarco who they had met at Full Moon Party on Koh Pagnan a few months prior. He took us to his favorite hot pot place (delicious) and then to the Yu Yuan Gardens and Fashion Street Market to hit up some tourist attractions in the later afternoon. Dinner that night was street food skewers (different than Thai skewers... less BBQ like, more spices) and fried rice. We had a chill night just hanging out, smoked a bit, and were overall mesmerized by the lights that he had which was later than my hand. While walking back from their apartment later that night we saw the dirty side of Shanghai... literally. There were massive piles of trash EVERYWHERE. Just everything that had been thrown out that day piled in the middle of the street where earlier that day raw fish, frogs, chicken, beef, etc had been laid out and would be the following day again. Yikes. Definitely not the prettiest sight but I really have to give it up to the Shanghai street cleaners.
Day 2 was spent walking along the Bund and through the financial district. We took Bund Sightseeing Tunnel across the river to get a better look at some of the architecture and get a different perspective on the city. This tunnel was unreal. It's ashame that I could not get a better picture of it but all I can describe it as was jazzy meats Halloween meats Disney. Ridiculous and soo Asian. When we got to the other side we tried scoping out this coffee shop that we had read about in Lonely Planet (damnit Lonely Planet you let us down again!!) but the staff in the HSBC building where it supposedly was did not know of any coffee shop so we settled for the mall and discovered MOCHI!! I had had mochi for the first time the Khon Kaen weekend when the Japanese teachers made it for the Amata dinner party, however, this mochi was unreal. It was the same dough but really cold and had filing on the inside. We each got 2, all different flavors, and made sure to sneak bites when one got a particularly good rating.
That night we went to a new area of town, the French Concession, which is like the Soho or Meat Packing District of New York.. young, hip, and good restaurants. We ate at this Chinese restaurant called Schezwan Citizen and had a spread of awesome Chinese food as well as a basil martini which I will not forget anytime soon. Afterwards it was a night out on the town. We had Bijo (rice liquor) and beer and headed to a few different bars before ending our night at M2 club. We met a Chinese guy named Billy who would not take off his sunglasses inside but was pretty, uh, entertaining.
The next day we had a late start, switched hostels so that we could be closer to downtown (Shanghai Soho International Youth Hostel... highly recommend it) and had a chill night walking along Pedestrian Square, having tea on a roof top, and of course, eating.
Our final day in Shanghai was spent at the EXPO. The EXPO (also known as the World's Fair) is an international exposition where participating countries create national pavilions that demonstrate a common international mission current to the time (the environment in Shanghai) as well as a glimpse into that particular country, its customs, and its people. Although people had warned us that the lines were insane (2 to 3 hour waits per exhibit) and warned us that we would be lucky to see 3, we ended up being able to see 7 different countries which included New Zealand, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Greece, Angola, and the Netherlands. They were all cool but Indonesia and Angola were the best that we saw for sure. I thought that they both represented the environmental conservation message of the EXPO as well as the country's heritage in the most interesting and people-friendly way possible. It was a great experience overall though and I was really happy that we did it despite being unsure whether or not it was going to be worth our while.
After the EXPO we headed to the Urban Planning Museum to check out how Shanghai developed so radially from a closed-off, un-westernized, ancient city to the thriving metropolis of architecture and culture that it is today. That night we had a final drink with the boys at the View Bar on pillows the size of swimming pools. The first part of China extravaganza came to a close wayyy too quickly, however, Hong Kong here we come!!
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