Why hello, I've made it back to the States in one piece. Ok maybe more like 3 pieces if you include my two suitcases
I guess this blog is a bit of a misnomer now that I am including Shanghai but I ended up spending about 2.5 weeks there, in and out of other countries and cities so it makes up a pretty significant portion of my trip. I still have mixed feelings about Shanghai, I was glad to have at least become acquainted with the city but not sure if I would ever want to spend an extended amount of time there again. As I mentioned earlier, as far as population and land mass goes, Shanghai is enormous, trumps Bangkok and even New York City. When it comes to navigating your way around, you need to know exactly where you're going otherwise you will definitely get lost and in some areas, people are not exactly the most helpful for directions. Shanghai is too big of a city to walk around trying to guess where things are, so it's good to have a map. My mother scolded me for calling Chinese people mean in an earlier post and even though I have met some nicer individuals in Shanghai, I still think it is still one of the least friendly countries I have visited but now I understand more why they are like that. I would compare being in public places in Shanghai to being in class with a bunch of ambitious, med school bound students. There are a lot of you gunning for a few spots (or goods, whatever the case may be), every man or woman for him/herself. If you aren't aggressive enough, someone else will have no problem taking it from you.
I should note that my parents came into Shanghai when I got back from Hong Kong which was a relief because they could relieve me of my Chinese speaking duties. A good thing because I didn't have to struggle so much but maybe not so good because then I wasn't practicing my Chinese as much anymore? They were under the impression that my Mandarin was really weak (although I would too if my daughter dropped out of Chinese school at 13 years old and barely passed Chinese in college) but I think I really surprised them when I actually did speak. I still have a long way to go but it is nice to know that I can at least engage in conversation with a native speaker and not sound like a total idiot.
This leg of my trip was really different from the SE Asia portion because instead of having a set plan of which sites to see in what city, I was living with my relatives who are obviously well integrated with the locals. While I was able to see the vast majority of the tourist sites in Shanghai such as the Bund, Jing'an Temple, the Yuyuan Gardens, Xi Tian Di, the shopping district of Nanjing Road, and so many other places that I can't even name at the moment, I also spent a lot of time hanging out near where I was staying in Pudong eating cheap noodles and getting cheap massages. We went to the massage parlor so often that the employees started to recognize us and would request to work on us so they could ask us questions about the U.S. Since the cost of about 10 massages in Shanghai could probably equal 1 decent massage in the States, I probably won't get a massage here for a long, long time. My muscles will definitely miss the special treatment.
Also in any typical Asian relatives fashion, I spent a lot of time in Shanghai EATING. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to eat. A lot sometimes. But even this became overwhelming at times. There is a lot of good food in Shanghai because you can find a range of cheap local eats to high end dining and I was fortunate to have access to this variety. Everyone knows about the delicious xiao long baos (soup dumplings) so I'm going to rave about their underrated cousin, the sheng jian baos (raw fried buns) instead. Unlike the xiao long baos which are wrapped in thin sheets of dough much like wonton wraps, sheng jian baos are soup dumplings inside a flour dough bun (those white bread-y buns like the tsa sa baos) and these buns are pan fried until they are crispy, seasoned with sesame seeds and scallions and dipped in vinegar. You have to be careful when you eat them though, the soup inside the dumplings take a while to cool down so you usually have to bite a small hole in the bun to let the hot soup vent. They are so delicious and I have little hope that I will find them in the States but if you are in Shanghai, be sure to search the local food stands for these mouthfuls of delight! I also really enjoyed the noodle shops near our apartments. They are run by a Muslim Chinese group and the noodles are stretched and pulled by hand so they are called "La Mien", meaning "pulled noodles". They cook very quickly so they come out hot and fresh.
We were able to visit the 2010 Shanghai World Expo while we were there and also visited the cities of Nanjing and Yangzhou but I will talk about them in future posts. Overall despite my mixed feelings, I still had a good time in Shanghai and was able to see many different sides of the city. Good to be back home though, I'll actually have time to put work into my blog posts!
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