7 posts tagged “shanghai”
Totally forgot about this until I checked out the site today, but when we visited the Beijing Museum, they had a collection of flags displaying the countries participating the the Shanghai World Expo next year.
The day and time we visited could not be better. Some of my fellow classmates witnessed the confirmation of our home country!
If you don't know anything about the World Expo in Shanghai, don't be ashamed. I knew nothing about it until I saw this toothpaste/Gumby figure popping up everywhere in the city...
But besides Hai Bao, there's so many other reasons why one would really really want to go to Shanghai next summer for the expo, like the customized pavillions they're making for each country involved!
I still can't get over how amazing the scenery is here in Shanghai! The
buildings are so huge and inspiring. Today, we went to three museums.
We crammed in the time and it was hard to be able to look at
everything. The first museum was a historical museum of Shanghai, which
had many exhibits showcasing further development of the city and
preparations for the World Expo in 2010. The second museum was an art
museum with a great collection of very old jade, bronze ornaments, and tools. The
third was a natural science museum, set up like a rainforest with animal models
from all sorts of environments.
We ate at a Japanese restaurant, where I had gyoza and curried pumpkin croquet. The mall was an endless maze, and there was a
dance contest going on downstairs, they were dancing to NSYNC.
Then the sky opened up and it was pouring for a while, with
thunder and lightning. We waited in the bus for a while, waiting for the downpour to stop. Meanwhile, each person on the street had their own umbrella and it was a beautiful display of designs and colors.
We went to the shopping area,
Nanjing Road. There's a big mall with lots of fancy, high end cosmetics
and clothing. I needed to get some medicine for my face badly, the
weather in Shanghai is so hot that it opens up my pores like a 24/7
sauna and the pollution is making me break out. But I feel like the pollution is not terrible because I have very bad asthma and I haven't had any issues with breathing yet.
And now I said goodbye to Tiny for a second time, with a hope I can meet her in Hong Kong next year.
We took a boat to see the views of Shanghai's famous harbor, filled with historical buildings of all sorts, mostly European. They were built at the end of the 19th century and the Bund was a very important financial hub of Asia.
We got to go to the top!
Taking a tiny technicolor elevator at super high speed to the top floor, we exited to the tallest observation deck in the world, where pieces of the floor were replaced by see-through glass and we could see the streets below.
It was a bit dizzying to try and step onto those glass tiles. It was pretty humid out, so everything was shielded by a white haze.
It wasn't as crowded as I thought it was going to be in the gardens, but there was a great deal of other tourists. Tiny and I bumped into a really nice Australian family, and then we fed koi some cake.
Shanghai Normal University (上海师范大学) is a famous liberal arts and teaching school located in Shanghai.
Tiny is working on an internship in Shanghai Normal for part of the summer, which is lucky for us because otherwise she'd be in Hong Kong. I haven't seen her since she left from the fall-winter semester at Bridgewater State College. She was not only my Chinese tutor, but a good friend that lived right down the hall in my dorm and popped in every day. We taught her many things about the US, and she even slept over my house and my father took her out on his boat. We also took the train into Boston many times during the fall.
My Chinese Tutor from the spring semester, Lichee, is a native of Shanghai and we saw here there too.
Later today, we're going to visit the Shanghai Financial Building, and the Yu Yuen Gardens!
After a very long flight, I have finally landed in Shanghai. Yesterday,
actually. But I went to bed right away so I didn't update.
I watched 4 movies on the flight: Beijing Bicycle, Kung Fu Hip Hop, Flowers
in the Shadows, and Always Sunny on Second Street. The first two movies were Chinese, while the second two were Japanese.
Then when we
landed, we had some guys in space suits take our temperatures with
these forehead scanning devices- but they actually had to take my
temperature again because I was dehydrated and may have been borderline
due to not drinking my usual million gallons a day. They were checking for the H1N1 virus, aka Swine Flu.
Tiny was there when we landed, and she looks so cute! I missed her so much.
Then we took a bus to Shanghai Normal University and ate, and I just passed out while everyone went to a show. I had to rest.
It still hasn't hit me that I'm on the other side of the world again.
Here is some music for Shanghai, a song by Pinkberry. They're from Shanghai, if you'd like to hear what Chinese rock music sounds like. The original rendering of the band and title is 红色陷阱 - 小不点 (in case I romanized wrong, I believe this is the correct title, but Vox doesn't like Chinese files so I had to fix it).
