Shanghai

I returned to Beijing from Shanghai this Tuesday. Ever since I have been catching up with life here in Beijing. I feel that now finally I'm back on track with the rest of the class. Even though the hotel here in Beijing isn't home, it was nice to return to familiar places after our 5 day stay in a youth hostel in Shanghai.
Wednesday, June 13th at 8:35pm our train (T104) left the Beijing main train station. It was a 12 hour ride till we arrived in Shanghai the next morning. The ride was quite comfortable as we had beds to sleep on, which I might add were almost more comfortable than the hotel beds. If only the flight back to Canada was that comfortable the 14 hours plane ride would pass quickly.
The first day in Shanghai it rained most of the time. We found our youth hostel dropped off our bags and despite the rain to the subway to the downtown area and walked around a bit.
That evening we went for supper in the French Concession area of Shanghai and had Hong Kong style food...very strange, I know: Hong Kong style food in Shanghai and out of all places in the French Concession area...but it was quite good. The rest of the evening was not too eventful we took a stroll around the French Concession and then returned to the hostel.
The next day Olivia and I took the subway to the Pudong area of Shanghai, that is the business district with all the tall skyscrapers. It was amazing to walk out of the subway station and see the buildings growing to be taller and taller. We eventually ended up at the river front (the Huangpu River 黄埔江). We were hungry so we chose a random restaurant at the river front called BundView. We were very pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. The set lunch only cost 88元 ($15) and it included: a Salad, soup, bread, main meal and dessert. It was really fancy and good tasting food. Later that day we met up with the rest of the group and we all decided to go to the BundView together. It was quite the feast and we got treated like VIPs. We all had big meals for supper and bought several bottles of wine to go with the meal. After what seemed like eating all day we ended up at a club/bar called Windows Too which was quite strange as there were many westerners there and I was very used to seeing a lot of Chinese people.
The next day was also really fun. Olivia, Isabell and I went to visit a Buddhist temple. It was very neat to see all the people there practicing their faith. We also got to see a Buddhist service, the monks were singing and chanting. After this we all met up and decided to visit the tallest building in China (at the moment the Jin Mao Building) which also has the Cloud 9 bar of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel. The view from the top was amazing. A few of us decided to go to Cloud 9 for a few drinks to enjoy the view at this exclusive location. From the top we could look down on both the skyline of the Pudong district as well as the well known Bund district. As they do every night there were fireworks launched from a boat on the river and the moment at Cloud 9 seemed to be something out of a James Bond movie (drinking a Martini and all).
Later that night we went to a club called Bon Bon, in the French Concession area. There happened to be a well known DJ from abroad hosting an event so the music was quite good. The next day was a very relaxed one as we had spent so much energy the night before. We ended up back at our favourite restaurant the BundView and sat there to order lunch. Lunch turned into afternoon which turned into night and we were still sitting on the comfortable cushioned chairs ordering a bottle of Champagne (Moët & Chandon wich would usually cost $264) but we got it for 680元.
Shanghai was a nice contrast to Beijing. Now it's back to my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but the adventure in Shanghai sure was a memorable one. Above, a picture of the Shanghai skyline and many more pictures of the other adventures on Flickr (Shanghai Museum, little side streets, boat rides, losing and finding Chuck Norris -aka. the Gnome-, etc...)
Shanghai was a wonderful destination. I'm glad I have lots of pictures to remember it by.
Now it is Friday and another weekend begins (it is Charles' birthday this weekend so no doubt there will be a party). Only 32 days left in China, although classes finish on July 13th, then there is a final exam and a week long end-of-the-program trip.
More later when I go visit more places.