Today did not start off on the best
foot as we found out that the university made a mistake in scheduling our
classes. We now start class an hour earlier every day leaving a revised
schedule of 8:30-11:45 and 1-4:15 every day. Today was our first day of our
Chinese language class, which was very dry but very informative. We basically
sounded like a 3rd grade choir class repeating after the teacher
trying to match the different tones she was speaking. After a somewhat painful
couple of hours we made our way to the dining courts for the second time. Bryan
and I ventured into one of the back rooms that had sizzling plates that looked
really good but the problem was that their stuff wasn’t all on display so we
really had no way to order. I remembered the word for chicken and we surprisingly
ended up with what we wanted. It was pretty good although we are starting to
come to the realization that meat here just isn’t the same quality of what we
are used to and has a lot more fat to pick around.
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| Sizzling lunch plate from dining court |
After lunch we headed to our next
class, when I realized I needed to use the bathroom. I bravely went into the
bathroom in our building and peed in my first Chinese hole - quite an
interesting phenomenon. I was lucky enough that there was toilet paper provided
which is not a common thing here, but a luxury.
Our class got out an hour early so we decided to go on an adventure. We got
on the subway and went back down to People’s Square and walked down Nanshing
Road all the way to the Bund, which is probably the second best view of the
city you can find. The walk from People’s square to The Bund is full of fun
shops and markets where we all did a little bartering. Bryan bought a chess set
and some chop sticks and I almost bought a watch but decided to walk away
despite how insistent the seller was.
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| Nanshing Road |
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| Bryan's chess set |
At the end of our walk we passed
the Peace Hotel, which we heard was amazing, so we decided to stop in and got a
few pictures in the beautiful lobby. We then saw our first true view of the
Shanghai skyline, which was absolutely amazing. We decided we had to get across the river to get closer to
the Pearl Tower and found a ferry across for the equivalent of a quarter.
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| Peace Hotel lobby |
We walked around the city until we
ended up right at the base of the Pearl Tower. Bryan, James, and I decided that
we couldn’t pass on the opportunity to go up in it, so we gave in and could not
have been happier with our decision. It was such a breathtaking view that I
can’t even describe it other than it is definitely the best possible view of
Shanghai you can find. You could see lights as far as you could see in any
given direction. There was even a deck you could walk out on that had glass
floors and walls which was one of the scariest things I have ever done but also
one of the most amazing. We even bought the picture that they took of us
because it was only like $5, which is so much cheaper than you could ever get
in the US.
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| Shanghai skyline from The Bund |
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| View from top of Pearl Tower |
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| View from the glass deck |
After looking around for a while we
decided it had been a long day and was time to head back before the subway
closed. Once we got back near campus we went out to a Japanese restaurant
across the street for a 9:00 dinner and got some much needed dumplings and
fried rice. We barely made it from the restaurant home we were all so exhausted,
but when we did it was lights out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
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| Pudong skyline at night |
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| The Pearl Tower |
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| Japanese fried rice |
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