We made it into China without any issue--I even got to see Confessions of a shopaholic and He's just not that into you on the plane. Thought I was going to kill myself for a few hours there.
Had some fun finding our hotel. Evidently two streets in shanghai translate into the same pinyin (western characters) so we wandered for like two hours only to be on the wrong Shanxi St. Luckily with my Chinese phrasebook, and happening upon someone who spoke english, we were able to get directions to the right one. Had a great dinner of xiao long bao, a shanghainese special dumpling filled with pork and soup. we also took a ritzy train up and down one of the main shopping streets, just because we could.
Met up with one of my bro's friends today and walked through the french concession and old Shanghai. The bund, the famous walkway on the water, is closed as they are renovating for the world expo in 2010, so unfortunately we won't get to that this trip. the city has changed a lot since 2006 when I was here last, a lot more European/American fashion, western banks have moved in, young couples are more amorous in public, and contrary to the etiquette book I read before coming, people do in fact wear flip flops these days. Some things remain amusingly different--I ordered veggie soup at lunch, which evidently had meat and duck blood, which they had neglected to mention in the description. Duck blood has a similar consistency to jello, if you ever wondered. I would take it any day over the fried whole birds, snails, and innards that we saw while walking around the market.
It's a lot of fun being back though harder without the Chinese speakers that I relied on last time. more room for adventure, I guess?
Off to forage for more bubble tea!
Note from Travis: Mangoritas on Cloud 9
We just saw the Orient Pearl Tower light up and enjoyed the view of the skyline and river (and the pollution-fog haze).
The view is even better than the underwater sightseeing tour in the Bund tunnel that took us through "Paradise and Hell" and a "Meteoral Shower".
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