Being a Tourist

Saturday Jan 10^th…

W slept in today and then we finally got our dinning cards filled with money for the month of January! Yay! So Caitlin, Josh, and I had lunch at the dinning hall…which actually has good food but like any other dinning hall it mostly has the same things everyday so it gets old pretty quickly.

After lunch Caitlin and I planned another wonderful outing for the day. We decided we were going to be tourists and we would invite the group and of course everyone wanted to join on our adventure.  We headed out to the Jing’an Temple. It was a lot smaller than I expected but still very interesting. I liked that the Temple has not been turned into a big tourist trap. It doesn’t cost anything to get in and there are still a ton a people their praying. People go there to pray for good fortune (at least that is what we read in a tourist book because all of the signs there are written in Chinese). I also liked that the city was built right around it. Everywhere you looked there was a skyscraper. It’s always interesting to see structures that are so old and still standing.

We left the Jing’an temple and got on the subway. We went over to the Pudong side and went to the Oriental Pearl Tower. This is a massive Tower. Looking at it from across the river you know it’s big but the size of the concrete cylinder legs is just incredible.  We paid 150 kuai to go up to the highest public point as possible…the space module (350 meters).  This was worth every penny. It was a beautiful clear day, the smog was almost non-existent, and it was just about to be sunset. So we saw the city during daylight, sunset, and at dark all from a 350 meter birds eye view.  It was really neat to see both Pudong and Puxi from this lookout. We were able to see XuJiaHui (well some of the buildings in XuJiaHui) from up there. It really is the biggest skyline I have ever seen and they are still constantly building more.  Every direction you look there are skyscrapers for as far as you can see. 

With our ticket we purchased we were also eligible to go on a rollercoaster. They have a rollercoaster in the tower! It was extremely unexpected and a lot of fun. Also, we were able to go to the 90 meter observation deck so we were able to look at the city in the fresh cold air! By the time we made it down to the observation deck it was dark out and all of the city lights were on which was a completely different sight, but just as incredible. In addition, we could go on the space floor. This was entertaining for us in the sense that we are in China, and they are advertising the China space program and had model rockets with China written on them, and then directly behind these rockets on the walls they had pictures of space ships with USA on them…just kind of backwards. Another thing the ticket had to offer was an Imax style simulator. The ‘movie’ started with us riding the ‘American Eagle’ at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL, then we were in some sand dunes riding dune buggies, and eventually we were on snowmobiles. We were pretty shocked that we were riding the ‘American Eagle’…in China. When we bought our tickets we didn't know about all of the hidden deals we just thought we were going up to the highest point but turns out we had atleast 4 hours of great entertainment. And we didn't even make it to the museum in the tower!

On the way back home we went to a Chinese fast food restaurant, Kungfu. I guess that is kind of an oxymoron in the sense that Chinese food usually comes out quickly after ordering anyway but, this is structured like a fast food restaurant back home. The food was decent, I will probably have it again at some point, however, it is not a place I am rushing back to. Also, it was kind of expensive compared to other places we have eaten at.

After a long day of touring we all just hung out and talked, I ended up going to bed semi early. Being a tourist is hard work but it is awesome to explore such a big city with so many different dimensions. There is always something to do and see.