China: Shanghai

Day 1: Museum and Oriental Pearl Tower

Our days in Shanghai sometimes felt as though we were doing nothing at all when, in actuality, we were doing a lot, and we saw most of the sites I had written on my list. On our first day, we started off near the People's Square, a park near the center of the city. It has a nice garden, and the Shanghai Museum is located within it. It's not a large park, and it is surrounded by interesting skyscrapers, so it almost feels as though you never left the city. Not at all the kind of break from the city that a place like Central Park in NYC can give you. Still, it was nice to look around for a bit. 

We stopped first at the Shanghai Museum in the People's Square. The Shanghai Museum is a 4-story free museum with exhibits featuring all kinds of different Chinese artworks. We saw some very old Buddhist statues and carvings, some Chinese-style scroll paintings, a calligraphy exhibit, and some amazingly intricate ceramics. It was an easy way to learn about and see various Chinese arts all in one place. There were also exhibits that were about the history of China, though not exactly about Shanghai, specifically, as I would have expected at "The Shanghai Museum." Still, it was educational. I learned a bit more about the minority ethnic groups who live in China. As I said in a prior post, China is so large and has conquered so many different areas, but the people in those areas still retained their own cultures. These ethnic minorities are still present today in different regions of China. The typical people we think of as Chinese are Han Chinese, but there are other people who live in China who are not Han Chinese. In this regard, China is vastly different from Korea. Korea is a homogeneous society where everyone is simply Korean. There are no ethnic minorities whatsoever. China is such an interesting place, and I barely learned about it in school, which is just a shame. The exhibit about the minorities in China displayed art and clothing from a few of the different groups. 

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel

Huangpu River and Oriental Pearl Tower

After checking out the Shanghai Museum for as long as we could before feeling "museumed out," we took a short walk along Nanjing Road, a road that has been a major shopping center of the city for a long time. Today, Nanjing Road is mostly expensive brands that I don't care to look at, let alone buy. Nanjing Road takes you to the west bank of the Huangpu River, the river that flows through Shanghai. On the west side of the river is The Bund, a line of European-style buildings that are just some of the remaining colonial influences in Shanghai. On the east bank of the river is the Oriental Pearl Tower and a ton of big, new skyscrapers. There's a promenade next to The Bund that we walked along. There are a few ways to cross the river: ferry, subway, or The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. We opted for the Sightseeing Tunnel because I had heard that it was a crazy experience that you should have at least once in Shanghai. The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is this little tram that takes you under the water and through a tunnel. Along the way, they do a sort of psychedelic light show as they play some weird music and just say words to you, like "sea cadence" or "meteor shower." I guess the lights kind of matched the words they were saying, but it was just so weird. After we got off our short tram ride, we made our way to the Oriental Pearl Tower. 

view of the Bund from the Tower

glass floor at the Tower

The Tower is Shanghai's famous buildings. It looks kind of like a futuristic version of the Eiffel Tower...that is also pink. There was no line, because it is off peak season, but the ropes they had in place tell me that it would have been a LONG wait if we had gone during peak season. We decided not to pay extra money to go up to the very top look-out deck. There are various levels that you can pay to go to, so we opted to just see the observation deck with the clear, glass floor and all the levels below that. When you've seen one view high up, you've seen them all. I've been to other buildings with glass floors before, and for someone who loves roller coasters and isn't really afraid of heights, they always freak me out. It is a 360 degree observation deck, so you can see all of Shanghai from up there. Aside from the fact that the sky was rainy and gray, you could see really far, which probably means the air pollution wasn't that bad. Down a few floors is an arcade. We didn't play any games, but we did ride an indoor roller coaster. It was nothing too crazy, but it was fun. Gianni was freaking out beforehand despite my telling him that it was a ride for children. We rode the glass elevator down to the bottom floor of the Oriental Pearl Tower when we were all finished. The glass elevator doesn't go the whole way up the tower, so we had to get it from a certain floor. At the base, there's a small history museum about the evolution of Shanghai. There are a lot of dioramas that are supposed to show you how old Shanghai used to be.

Shanghai became the international center it is today as a result of its colonial history. At various times, Imperialist powers have claimed either areas of the city or the entire city. For example, the area near where we stayed in Shanghai is referred to as The French Concession. That is the area that China gave up and where the French then settled. There was also a British Concession at one time I think. This history of colonization by European powers is the reason why there are so many European-style buildings left. In the French Concession, the streets are lined with trees, and the houses and buildings look like they are straight out of Paris. 

We headed back to the apartment pretty early to take a nap and later met up with Eddie and Jena (our hosts) not too far from their house to get dinner. We tried to have soup dumplings, one of Shanghai's signature dishes, but the restaurant they like was closed. Instead, we went to a dumpling place that Anthony Bourdain had apparently eaten at. We got massive plates of dumplings that were really tasty, and then stopped at a small but really comfortable bar and chatted a bit. We got to talking about Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and they mentioned that they had Birdman, which I had been dying to see. We got back to their place and watched Birdman. It was a late night but worth it. The acting in Birdman was excellent and so was the cinematography. Very interesting visually. I enjoyed it. 

Day 2: Markets, Garden, Propaganda

Antiques market

The next day we took a suggestion from Eddie and Jena and went to check out the antique and cricket markets. If you go there, I'd suggest going a bit later in the day because things would be up and running more, but we still got a feel for it. The antiques market was selling a lot of the same stuff we had seen in other cities, but I did buy a ceramic round container that used to hold stamp ink. It's blue and white with a koi fish pattern and some of the fish are done in pink, which is apparently more rare.  I was told that it's from the 1600's or something, but I don't really believe her. Mostly, I just thought it was nice. A few of the vendors at the market told us that the market is actually going to be closed. In doing

a man haggling for a cricket

my research about Shanghai, I read that markets are sometimes just shut down, and they either reopen somewhere else or just quietly in the same place. Not sure why that is, but maybe it has to do with not having people gather in public, or the market was illegal to begin with. I'm not sure. We walked through the antiques market, looking at all the interesting things. Some vendors had stalls with outdoor displays, some only had carts, and some seemed to have actual shops. 

Just across the street from the antiques market was the main reason we went down to that area: the cricket market. Crickets in China are not just the little green ones that we are used to seeing. They have these huge crickets that come in all kinds of colors. Apparently, some people like to buy crickets and listen to their "songs" at their house. I think most people were actually buying the crickets in order to fight them. Cricket fighting has been big in China for a long time. People have their crickets fight and bet on the winners. How do you even get a cricket to fight? I have no idea. We walked through listening to all the crickets and watching people haggle over the price of some of the more formidable ones. That is one experience that I would never have had in the US. 

Yu Yuan Garden

It wasn't a very far walk from the markets area to the Yu Yuan Garden, so we decided to hoof it. Just as we began seeing signs for it, we were stopped by a man and woman who told us they were cousins. They asked us to take their picture with some European-style buildings in the background. After I took it, they started to chat us up. We told them we were English teachers, and they said they wanted to practice our English. I was talking to the girl, and Gianni to the guy. Eventually, both of them worked the conversations around to tea. They said there was some sort of tea festival or tea tasting happening just around the corner, and they invited us to go with them. They said it was a once a year event. Ever since we got scammed in Thailand, I've made sure to do research about the scams that happen in the countries we travel to. I did some research on China, and I heard about this sort of thing. Young people who speak good English will come up and try to get you to go to a tea ceremony. After you drink the tea, they will then make you buy some super expensive tea, and you've lost money. I heard about this happening more in Beijing, although we didn't have any problems until Shanghai. Anyway, Gianni and I both figured that's what the people were trying to do to us because how would we not have heard about a once a year tea festival that was happening? They also tried to tell us that, because it was lunch time, the line at the Yu Yuan Garden was really long. Anyway, we had had enough, so we used the dinner date we were supposed to have with my uncle that night as an excuse and got out of it. As we walked toward the garden, we heard the same thing happening to another English teacher in Korea! Word of advice people: look into scams before you travel! Right outside the entrance for the Yu Yuan Garden is a shopping area where all the buildings are done in the classic Chinese style. Gianni and I weren't looking to shop, so we walked right on by, but the buildings were still really cool to see. I'm sure it's a big tourist trap. 

The Yu Yuan Garden is definitely worth a visit. It was one of my favorite places in Shanghai. The Garden was constructed in 1577 during the Ming Dynasty by the son of one of the city's ministers as a comfort to his father in his old age. It has a variety of different kinds of buildings, fish ponds, bridges, and a beautiful wall around it that is in the shape of the back of a dragon. In the 19th century, the Garden was damaged many times in various wars. It was repaired after World War II and reopened in 1961. The wall keeps it secluded from anything outside, so it is a really peaceful and relaxing place to just walk around and take in the traditional Chinese garden style. 

Our last stop before dinner was the Propaganda Art Poster Museum. Most propaganda posters were destroyed as the government changed in China, but the owner of this museum has the largest collection still in existence. He runs a small museum out of the basement of an apartment building. The Museum even prints very nice copies of the real posters you can see in the museum. They also have actual posters on sale, but the price was a little high for us. He even sells original copies of Mao's Little Red Book, the book where Mao's theories and practices were all detailed. The Propaganda Museum has all kinds of interesting posters on display, and there is information, in English, detailing the meaning behind the posters and propaganda style of various time periods. The museum starts with the calendar girls of the 1930's and continues through the glorification of Mao and the modernization of China after his death. My personal favorites were the ones featuring green-skinned, sickly monster creatures as people from the US. It certainly was interesting, and I think Gianni really enjoyed himself. When I heard about that Museum, I knew it would be right up his alley since he was a political science major. Gianni bought some postcard copies of different posters at the Museum as well as a larger copy of his favorite poster about how great the hydrogen bomb is after China was able to develop them. 

Our dinner plans were to meet my Uncle Chip and my Aunt Jen at their hotel. Uncle Chip has worked for 3M for a really long time, and they recently relocated him to Shanghai for a year before he retires. Aunt Jen won't be living their permanently, but she came to help Uncle Chip settle in. Luckily, our vacation coordinated perfectly with the dates they were coming to Shanghai. They were set to land in Shanghai on the afternoon of our second day there. It couldn't have worked out better. 

Even though we were early for dinner, we decided to head over to their hotel and wait there...perhaps use the wifi a bit. We hopped in a taxi from the closest subway station I could find on the map. Despite the fact that my map did have Chinese on it, the driver seemed to have no idea where this major hotel was. He played on his GPS for a few minutes, and we thought he finally had it when he started driving. He drove for quite some time and took a left when I thought he should have taken a right. The driver then pulled the car over and started yelling at us in Chinese as though we could understand what he was saying. Dejected, we gave him some cash and got the hell out of that cab. Screw that guy, seriously. We walked for a while in the rain, and I stopped to ask directions from a restaurant. There was a guy who was about to sit down to dinner with his friend who heard our trouble with the hostess at the restaurant and came over to help. He was such a god send. He told us to get a taxi, and I explained the terrible situation with the previous driver. He actually came outside with me, hailed a cab, and gave the driver full directions to get us there safely. Whoever you are sir, you are so wonderful! Thank you! At long last, we made it to the hotel, but Aunt Jen and Uncle Chip were running a little late because of the traffic. We waited a bit for them in the comfort of the hotel. 

I didn't know who was supposed to welcome who to Shanghai since we had arrived earlier but Uncle Chip will actually be living there. After they arrived, we decided to go to dinner at a nearby fancy shopping mall. Uncle Chip had eaten at this restaurant before on one of his earlier trips to the city. We ordered the food since we are more familiar with Chinese food than they are (I hope what we good you guys!). I thought the food was really good. Aunt Jen did her best, stabbing things with the chopsticks. She made it very clear that she does not want to deal with them, and she even brought plastic forks with her in her suitcase (you crack me up Aunt Jen!). We attempted to teach Uncle Chip how to use them since he will probably need to use them from now on. I think he will get the hang of it soon. We also got the waiter to take a picture of us as photo evidence for my mom that we did actually see each other. The first person we asked wasn't our waiter, then our waiter came over and took the phone like he was jealous we asked someone else. He kept telling us his name was Jimmy. Interesting fellow. Gianni and I both had a great time chatting and having dinner with my aunt and uncle. Gianni says he definitely sees a family resemblance between the way my mom and my uncle say things and their expressions. They were both really tired, having just arrived, so we parted ways back at their hotel and made plans to meet up one more time before Gianni and I were set to leave China. We walked back to the subway, which wasn't actually that far of a walk. If only we had walked and avoided that whole stupid taxi mess. 

Day 3: Temple, Chocolate, Family

On our last full day in Shanghai, we saw one thing that was very Chinese and another thing that was definitely not Chinese before meeting up with Aunt Jen and Uncle Chip for dinner again. Our first site of the day was the Jade Buddha Temple in the northern part of Shanghai. It was on my list as a must-see place to see in the city. The temple was founded in 1882 and contains 2 jade statues of Buddha that were imported from Burma. One of the Buddha's is sitting and another is lying down. Singapore donated a larger reclining (lying down) Buddha made of marble, and I think that's the one we actually saw. I definitely saw the jade Buddha that was sitting, but I'm not sure I saw the one that was reclining. The temple is pretty small, just a few buildings to look at. The interior of the main building had a large golden Buddha, and the ceiling had a circular dome in it that seemed to be ringed in wood carved to be flower petals. There is a separate entrance at the back to see the actual sitting jade Buddha. You have to pay a little bit extra to get in, so Gianni decided to sit it out while I went in. The back building seems like it used to be a house behind the temple or maybe living quarters for the monks. You have to walk up a flights of stairs to see it, and it just feels very homey in there. The room where they keep the jade Buddha statue could easily have been an old bedroom or living room or something. There were some other Buddhist artifacts I looked at on the way up to the main room with the statue. I couldn't take pictures of the jade Buddha statue, but it was incredible. Beautifully carved and detailed. Again, not sure if the reclining jade statue was in the same room, and I just missed it or what. I think it must have been in the same room but maybe smaller than the sitting Buddha, so I overlooked it. Either way, the sitting one was lovely. 

Sampling room

It was time for the place I was most looking forward to going to in Shanghai. It barely had anything to do with China, but I definitely felt like I had to go. Zotter's is an Austrian brand of chocolate, and they have a small factory in Shanghai! It's called Zotter's Chocolate Theatre, and if you know me, you know that I will never pass up an opportunity to go to a place with "chocolate" in the name. Gianni and I didn't really know what to expect when we got there, but I can tell you that it was completely and totally worth it. It was a bit of a walk from the subway station to the factory. The factory is in an area that they are building up and turning into a shopping mall/outlet store area. The entrance fee to get into Zotter's is a little high, but you get back what you pay and then some...in CHOCOLATE! Their are English tours on the hour, but I don't think it really matters. There was hardly anyone there since it's off peak season in China, and I think the tour guides would have taken us around at any time. We first watched a short video about the creation of Zotter's and the owner of the company as well as how the chocolate is made with fair-trade beans and completely organic ingredients. After that, our Austrian tour guide took us around the factory. They don't make a ton of products in their Shanghai location. It's more of a tour site, and they put together the ingredients that they get shipped from Austria to make

layered chocolate

chocolates for tour groups to eat. At the beginning of the tour, you get to taste the actual cocoa beans and the cocoa mass, which is refined beans before any sugar has been added. Cocoa mass is deceiving because it looks like liquid chocolate, but it isn't yet. You can taste the chocolate at every stage. You are given a tasting spoon that you can keep as a souvenir of your trip. After taste testing every step in the process of creating chocolate, we get to a room of chocolate fountains where you can taste test white chocolate, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate of varying percentages of strength. We also got to taste chocolate made with beans from different parts of the world to see how the flavor changed. I learned that dark chocolate doesn't actually have to be more bitter than milk chocolate. Instead, it depends on where the beans are from. You could actually taste the different between the beans; it's not something they just tell you. After tasting all the basic liquid chocolates, we were able to make

Our chocolate bar creation

our own bar for just a little bit extra, and it was a big bar, too! We chose to make ours in the star mold, and we did a mix of 60% dark chocolate (I forget where the beans were from) and raspberry chocolate. Zotters has the most flavorful and completely non-chemically tasting flavored chocolate I have ever had. My problem with most white chocolates is that it tastes super fake, but this was not the case with the Zotter's chocolate I had. Dark chocolate is cocoa beans and sugar, milk chocolate is cocoa beans, sugar, and milk, and white chocolate is made with milk, sugar, and cocoa butter. They make the flavored chocolate the same way as white chocolate but just add organic ingredients to flavor it as well. After they poured chocolate in our molds, we could stir it up to make patterns and we added other bit of chocolate, spices, and dried fruit on top. Our bar got sent to cooling for a half hour while we continued our tour. On the way up the stairs to the second floor tasting room were stations where you could taste crushed up chocolate lollipops in all different fruity flavors. The tasting room was amazing. Overlooking the factory floor, our guide left us alone to taste as much as we wanted for as long as we wanted. Gianni went into a sugar coma a bit before I did. I think I tried nearly all the flavors. There were so many good ones! Every bowl had a completely different flavor with different things mixed in. I couldn't help myself. As we made our way out of that room, our guide met us and took us to the best part of the tour: the milk bar! The guide asked us to pick a flavor of chocolate.

hot milk waiting for that chocolate bar

He then heated up milk for us and gave a full bar of whichever flavor we chose to put in the milk to melt. As long as we kept drinking the milk, we could have as much as we wanted. It was the BEST hot chocolate you could ever imagine. I got a masala chai chocolate bar, so my hot chocolate tasted like a chocolate chai tea. We also tried chocolate that had been added to alcohol, which we had to milk out of fake utters. The chocolate and whiskey was super strong. The next room was full of round, orange containers full of different flavors of chocolate truffles. The last room was the first kind of chocolates that the founder of Zotter chocolate made: a layered bar. There were all different kinds of strange flavors, some with multiple layers between the chocolate. We tried bacon and sacramental wine flavors, but there's, apparently, sometimes a cheese flavor, too! They were really tasty. We got our finished chocolate bar and a little present for Aunt Jen and Uncle Chip before heading out of Zotter's in a completely blissful sugar coma. If you go to Shanghai, and you like chocolate even a little bit, you MUST go to Zotter's Chocolate Theatre. 

Tian Zi Fang market area

We went back to drop things off at the apartment before meeting Uncle Chip and Aunt Jen at a bar in the Tian Zi Fang area of the city, which is right around the corner from where we were staying. Eddie and Jena suggested the bar to us as a good meeting point, and then the plan was to wait around and find a restaurant for dinner. Uncle Chip had been to Tian Zi Fang on a previous trip and enjoyed it, so Aunt Jen wanted to go as well. Tian Zi Fang is a shopping and restaurant area built into narrow, winding alleys. Some of the shops sell some pretty interesting stuff, and it's neat to just walk around and check it out. There are also a bunch of arts and crafts type things on sale. Gianni and I had a slight hiccup in meeting my aunt and uncle. We walked past it like 3 times without realizing because it's actually back from the street down a little alley. We finally got there, but we were a half hour late. Woops! It turns out that Uncle Chip had actually been to that bar on his last trip. We all got a drink and talked for a bit before going in search of food and shopping. We weren't that hungry, so we spent some time browsing the souvenirs for a bit. Uncle Chip had bought all his daughters and my aunt silk scarves on his last trip, and we found a shop selling similar ones. I ended up buying one with silk on one side and wool on the other. It has buttons, so I can wear it in different styles. It's blue and yellow with a beautiful picture of a traditional Chinese village on it. The winding streets in Tian Zi Fang could easily get you lost in the market, but it's just a super cool area, especially at night. There isn't much in the way of inexpensive food unless you go to one of the bars in the market, which is what we ended up doing. We didn't even eat Chinese food, but the Western food the bar was serving was pretty decent. So we got some more drinks and talked for a while longer before we had to say our goodbyes. Even though I saw them at Emily's wedding this past summer, it was really amazing to get to see Aunt Jen and Uncle Chip again. It was so strange to meet across the world, but it was fun exploring new areas with them. I'm glad that it worked out that we got to see them twice. Love you both! And to the Allan family: come to Korea, if you can. I will meet anyone in Seoul! 

Day 5: Seafood Street

On our final half day in Shanghai, we had seen nearly all of the things I had planned to see. I wish we had had time to see a water town, but we didn't. Water towns are these little villages on the outskirts of the city that are like Chinese Venices. People go around on boats, and there are canals everywhere. I really didn't hear about them until we got there, so I hadn't planned any time to go. Next time maybe! Anyway, the only thing left on my list to see was seafood street. Shanghai is famous for seafood, especially grilled oysters, so we went in search of those. Shouning Lu is the seafood street, and it's right near the People's Park we visited on the first day. Go figure. It wasn't too early, but it was a bit early for the market. It wasn't really that busy, and it seemed like a lot of the restaurants were closed. We walked up and down it, trying to figure out what was open and what wasn't, and we were getting kind of disappointed that we hadn't come another time when things were open. As we were about to give up and get something else, we noticed that there was one place people seemed to be eating at and decided to eat there. The owners of the restaurant didn't speak any English, so we ordered by pointing at the pictures on the menu on the wall. We got a huge plate of clams, some of the grilled oysters, and some other kind of shellfish with really big shells. There was so much food. I'm surprised we ate it all. But it was really delicious, so I'm glad we figured it out. Our massive meal was less than $16 for two of us! China has the best food prices ever.

Once we were done eating, it was time to head to the airport. We had to go back to Eddie and Jena's apartment to grab our things. They work all weekend, so they weren't home for us to say bye to. Their apartment was fantastic, and they were totally great. It's fun making new friends around the world. To get back to the airport, we knew we didn't want to take a taxi because it's too far and too much money. The subway also goes to the airport, but there are so many stops. We had plenty of time, but we didn't feel like stopping a million times. Instead, we really wanted to try Shanghai's maglev train. The maglev train only goes between 1 station and the airport with no other stops. It took us 2 transfers to get from the subway stop near the apartment to the maglev station, but it was the coolest train ride I've ever been on. It costs a little bit extra ($8 a person), but it gets you to the airport in no time. It's above ground, so you can look out the windows as the train travels at speeds of over 300 mph! It was so crazy! The maglev train got us to the airport really really early, so we just rested at the airport until it was time to board our flight.

The flight only took about 2 hours, and we made it to Incheon without a problem. You have to fill out health check surveys now at the airport because they are worried about ebola. We got through security and immigration without a problem and grabbed our bags. Where we ran into trouble was in getting to Daegu. I've never had so many problems taking the airport express bus before. We've taken it late at night on other trips without a problem, which is why I assumed the one from Daegu to the airport ran later in the day. That was not the case, we found out, and we had to take the train to Seoul instead at the beginning of our trip. Now we were at the end of our trip, and we just wanted to go home and sleep in our own house. The airport express bus counter that we usually get our tickets at was closed. The airport information lady told us that we could buy our tickets from another ticket office outside, which we went to go do. There, we were told that the last bus to Daegu for the night was sold out, and the woman was completely unsympathetic and unhelpful. Next, we tried checking the trains, but the last train to Daegu from Seoul Station was at 11pm. It was already 10:30pm, and it takes an hour to get from the airport to Seoul Station. The situation was super frustrating. Thankfully, we had the phone number for the people we stayed with in Incheon before our morning flight going to China. I called them, and they were our saviors! They had no one staying with them that night, and they agreed to let us stay the night and catch a train to Daegu from the airport in the morning. Such wonderful people! 

In the morning, Tylor called us a taxi, and we went back to the airport. There's actually a direct train that goes from Incheon airport to Daegu now, but it only runs at certain times of day. Usually, you have to go to Seoul Station and transfer from the airport train to the intercity trains. It's a pain in the neck, and there's a walk involved. I didn't feel like dealing with that, so we paid a little more to take the direct train back to Daegu in the afternoon. We got home around 4pm and just vegged for the rest of the night since we had school the next morning. 

This past week, we had one week of school. The third graders graduate at the end of the week, and the first week in February is supposed to put one week of school between January's winter break and February's "spring" break. Don't ask me to explain further. I don't get it either. I just played a speed dictation game with the kids all week that Maria gave me. It's fun, and the kids gets competitive about it. This week, we are desk warming, and on Saturday, we are leaving on another vacation to Japan! I couldn't be more excited. We are really lucky to be able to travel the world. I'm so grateful for the things I've been able to see and do thus far in Asia. Thanks for reading guys. I know it was a long one.