Museums & the Communists

Today was a rainy day in Shanghai, we woke up earlier than normal, about 5 am.  We are still trying to fight off jet lag. Breakfast was milk, rice again, with pork dumplings, fried eggs, pickles and noodles.  They don’t really seam to have a set menu for breakfast, its really whatever is left over from dinner.  We then boarded the bus, in nice cool weather and traveled down town, to the opposite side of the river than we were yesterday.  We were in the area of the people’s square, and saw the Shanghai museum first. It had a square base (earth) with a circular top (heavens)

  It was 4 floors of all sorts of ancient Chinese relics, from paintings and jade collections to calligraphy and furniture. We went all through the collections.  I learned that Jade comes in many different shades, including a rusty color, along with milk white and the traditional green.  They made all sorts of things out of it from cups to swords.  We had tea in the museum tea room, and had an impromptu class talking about the origins of language. We then went across the People’s Square, (there was a guy flying a kite that was getting some serious altitude.  It had to have been at least 20 stories up.  His string collector was a massive metal canister that looked like an old school movie can, so neat!)   to a shopping center where we had lunch.  It was considered a Brazilian restaurant, where they brought tons of different types of meats off of huge dagger looking rotisserie rods.  There were beefs, pork, duck, shrimps, sausages, and even tongue! 

I wasn’t a big fan of the tongue, it had a funny texture that I just couldn’t muster more than one bite.  We had, as usual, Watermelon.  I don't know what it is about watermelon, but people start to fight over it... very odd.   The view, however was absolutely beautiful.  We had a 3^rd floor view of the People’s Road & Square, and an amazing skyline.  After lunch we went to the Urban Planning Museum with a HUGE model of the whole first ring of Shanghai.  The model was massive, and you could walk all the way around it. 

 We then learned about the history, and how the area was divided up and how it grew into the city it is today.  We also got to see proposed plans for a centralized transportation center, (airport +train station + taxi depot + subway + bus + etc.) Centralized electricity/sewage/water/etc. lines and also a huge display about the Expo 2010.  The whole city is pretty worked up about it.  

We then went to the place where the first meeting of the communist party was held.  That was a real eye opener.  Seeing the entire communist relics, and how bluntly communists’ ideas were displayed was very very odd.  Especially when people shy away from such symbols as the hammer and sickle so much in America, it almost made me uneasy standing next to it in the museum.  I also found it interesting that there were Russians in attendance in the first meeting. The displays were very well done, and comprehensive, I loved the design and layout.  We then got to meander through the area, most of the houses were re-built or refurbished to their original state.  It had a quality of the French Quarter, with the upper balconies, however still very Chinese.  

The type is called Shinkumen, and it has a lovely red and gray/black brick work throughout.  Today it’s a very fashionable high-class shopping district, and most of the houses are now restaurants and bars with a very European feel, but the materials and scale are still there.  After milling about for a while, we were dropped off on Huaihai Road, (The Michigan Ave. of Shanghai) for dinner and whathaveyou.  We were expected to find our way back.  Micah and Justin and I went into a small café, got a lesson in how to order and take care of bills in China  (Much more difficult than expected, but it was a learning experience.) Then milled about in different stores ( H&M!!) before hiking to the subway, figuring out our stop, then figuring out the bus system to the University Grounds.  The public transportation was very easy to use, figure out, and very cheap.  The subway is only 4 RGB, and the bus 2 RGB.  Us girls are winding down early, getting some homework (reading) done, and going to bed.  Tomorrow is the Venice of the East.  We also figured out the Chinese remotes, and got our AC to work, so now we are nice and cool! 

P.S.  leave comments, I'd love to know what you guys think!! 

More photos!

The gardens were so peaceful, despite all of the tourists.  They were doing construction work on the "rockery" area, where a famous Ming dynasty Architect had created several rock formations.  It looked like a bunch of light colored lava rock to me, just in really interesting shapes. 

The International Finance Center on the left, or "the bottle opener" 

The famous Pearl tower (Check out the smog!) 

This was our lunch! 

Planes & Pigeons

Greetings from shanghai!

 

They say getting there is half the fun.  Our trip, I don’t think could have been considered anywhere near fun.  Five of us loaded on to our delta flight from the Indianapolis airport, on time at an ungodly hour of 7 am.  We proceeded to spend another 45 minutes in queue on the tarmac.   Atlanta wasn’t taking planes due to some weather related issues.  (The skies were clear blue when we got there, rather suspicious.)  Regardless, we were antsy because we only had an hour between the Indianapolis flight and the shanghai flight.  We arrived in atanat at concourse A, our flight was in councourse E.  So we rushed through the A, on to the subway car, and into E.  As we were walking, we heard the final boarding call for our flight.  We ran in mass hysteria screaming to hold the flight, all the way down the concourse.  We must have been a sight.  We boarded our 777 and began our 15 hour flight.  We had small Tv screens on the back of each head rest so I ended up watching Revolutionary Road,  Yes man, and a few other Tv shows.  Mica, the other girl on the trip however, had several problems, partly due to her hypoglycemia and not getting enough blood circulating around since we were sitting. She ended up fainting in the aisle, sended the whole plane into an uproar.   Doctors were found, and the oxygen tanks etc.  When we landed the Chinese government required us to stay in quarantine on the plane while they sent in 2 teams of people in Tyvec hazardous waist suits in to take our temperature incase of swine flu. When we got off the plane we went through an amazingly confusing customs, with huge masses of people, and very unclear queues.  When we made it through “security” (If you call a double wide fake metal detector that…) there were huge masses of people waiting.  We made our way through it and found our group.  The whole airport is not air conditioned, which  is typical for the are

a. We then took an hour bus ride through the city to the south west side, where Shanghai normal University, the place we are staying is.   We had a few minutes to clean up and then had our first meal.  Surprising or not, none of the food tastes remotely near the American Chinese food.  We had pork, vegetables, soup, rice, and a few other things.  We then went out into the city walked about half an hour to the subway station and took it to one of the more famous shopping streets.  The lights were beautiful, much like Times Square or Los Vegas.  We exchanged some money, enjoyed avoiding hockers trying to sell us watches or bags.  (Everyone tries to sell watches or bags, watches and bags, watches and bags!)  It seemed very Westernized, even had a pizza hut.  After a very short time, we all but crawled back to the University and dropped like flies into our rock hard beds!  The time difference is exactly 12 hours, (We didn’t even have to change our watches!)  We were up by 7 for breakfast, (rice pourage, seamed dumpling, HOT orange juice… no drink is served cold unless you ask, peanuts, and yams.)  and on the road by 8.  The typical working day starts at 8 here, 2 hours for lunch (Which the government encourages a nap during!!)  and ends around 5.  We drove about the city, which really never begins or ends, just continues on and on and on.  All of the residents live in high-rises, and we are told, that the only concerns city planners have are “what will the roof look like?” and “What will it look like at night.”  Its ridiculous that the whole city is huge towers.  We made it down to the river, next to the famous Pearl TV tower and walked along the (stinky and murky) river walk.  The sun was blazing hot, and the air was very humid.  Afterwards we decided to go to the international finance center, just recently completed.  To get there however, we had to complete an interesting traffic feat.  We went down, through a tunnel, to the other side of the river, then a (probably illegal) U-turn back through the same tunnel, and over to the tower.  The tower was. Completely. Awesome.  Very high-tec, shinny, and well designed.  We went up to the 97^th floor, and the 100^th floor observation decks.  We had a view of most of the city, the rest was covered by smog.  When we left we drove by the new World Expo 2010 site, to see all the construction.  The new little mascot, (who looks like gumby, but blue and some toothpaste on his head,) is everywhere we go.  We then went down to a more traditional area, where the Yu gardens were.  (http://www.yugarden.com.cn:8088/yugarden/)   The gardens were a historical preservation effort with temples, pagodas and beautiful rock . gardens.  It was an interesting site, and also fun to watch Chinese tourists along with German, French and other tourists alike.  Each have their own way of “visiting” We then walked around the shopping area, and had the largest lunch ever. It was sort of like a smorgasbord, where you picked your dishes, and then paid.  We all got several different things and ate until we were passed stuffed. We are really starting to get the hang of chopsticks too.  We had pork and chicken, lotus roots, noodles and all sorts of food that I wasn’t really sure of what it’s original form was, but it tasted good.  We exchanged some more money in an actual Chinese bank, which was an interesting experience.  It was much more condensed than our sprawling establishments.  Everything is taken care of in a very small area.  We had class on the stoop, talking about stereotyping, and our experiences thus far with the culture.  We also talked about the difference between the huge finance district, and the small traditional garden area, and which were “Chinese” We booked it back to the University to get ready for our big celebratory welcome meal with the Vice president of the university.  I’ve honestly never had so much food in my life.  We had a huge table with a large lazy Susan that spun around.  The selection of food ranged from pigeon (which was good, if you didn’t look at it… the head etc. was still there, and the same with the fish,) to more yams, jellyfish, dumplings (mmm!) corns, greens, chickens, porks, rice ball soup, and the dessert was watermelon.  (They are allll about the watermelon here.) With the arrival of each dish, the vice president would play a game with us, we would guess the food, eat it, and then he would tell us what it was.  Twisted, but fun.  Tonight, the boys went out to play, or rather, to hit the bars, and the ladies are staying in, fighting off jet lag and getting our readings finished for the next day’s discussion.  Mr. Ni, our tour guide and international officer with the University, said that tomorrow holds several museums for us.  Good night, (or rather good morning to you!) 

Where in the world?

We leave on the East Asia Summer Program 2009 trip to China on Saturday, early in the morning.  We will be arriving in Shanghai first, where we will begin our month long adventure! click on the map below to see the areas we will be traveling too!