Well I made it to China. After getting lost at O'Hare we almost missed our flight---Why wouldn't you put a flight to Shanghai in the international terminal??? The flight only took about 15.5 hours so it wasn't too bad. I didn't sleep too much on the plane, but stayed up upon arrival to Shanghai so I could get accustomed to the time difference. At the airport we had to wait in long lines to go through immigration. After they let us in the country we were able to pick up our luggage and two staff members from the university were waiting for us with a coach like bus.
By the time we got to our hotel/dorm it was about 6:00PM and we decided we needed to go out and explore Shanghai. We are a block away from the center of Xujiahui! Shopping is everywhere! We ate some noodles for dinner which were delicious and then called it an early night.
Yesterday (Sunday 4 Jan).....The weather was awful. It was raining and foggy but we ventured out anyway. We started just walking around random streets and then we decided it was time to figure out the subways. we bought our passes with ease because the man spoke some english. we payed 20 kuai (The current exchange rate is about 6.8 kuai = $1) as a deposit and then we are able to add money to the pass and reuse it over and over. this pass also works in taxis—really convenient. I was surprised by the subways, they were moderately clean. I mean they were no tube in London but they weren't bad. We went to people's square and wandered from there to The Bund. Since it was such a gross day we didn’t stay long, we couldn’t even see half of the pearl tower L We ventured through the Old Shanghai district which was really neat. It was the stereotypical China! The smells of West Lafayette have nothing on China. WOW! He have run into some pretty awful smells.
For Dinner we ate dumplings, which were fantastic! However the shop was pretty dirty and gross. It is better not to think about that otherwise I will starve to death here!
After the dumpling dinner we went out to the bars. My roommate Caitlin turned 21 today (the 5th) so we had to go out and celebrate. We went to a couple of places but one of them was a complete Chinese dive bar…it was awesome!!! We were there for a while and probably gave them their monthly quota but they were fun and between some broken Chinese on our end and some broken English on theres we were able to talk with them. The bar prices were high…no college specials, but the beer in the convenience stores is cheap! After the bars last night we went to the supplies shop (their translation for essentially what was a convenience store) and we were able to get cheap beer (about $0.80 for about 20oz) we came back to my room and just played cards and hung out.
Before coming back to our room we were trying to find a bathroom. And everyone we asked was giving us the weirdest looks...turns out I had the wrong word for toilet and what we were asking everyone was 'where is not good'....haha thankfully we finally found one and I am even more happy that I now know the right word for toilet!
Overall it was a great day. We saw a lot of Shanghai and didn’t get hit by one of the millions of bikes!
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