Sightseeing in Shanghai

Over the past two days my dad and I have begun to explore the city and visit some of the many tourist destinations. We ended up taking a guided tour on Sunday which gave us a great overview of the city. Besides my dad and I, there was only one other man from Sweden in the group making it really easy to ask questions and understand what we were being shown. The tour guide was also really cheerful and I could tell she very much enjoyed her job. While her accent took some time to get used to, her English was quite good. I think my dad just enjoyed having someone else who could for the most part follow his jokes and social commentary. 

We went all over city seeing sites such as the famous Yu Garden, the Bund which offers a wonderful view of the Shanghai skyline, and a Buddhist Temple. 

The garden is really a taste of old China with gorgeous traditional buildings and landscaping. The area that the garden is located in is called Old Town which hosts hundreds of little shops perfect for buying souvenirs and Chinese snacks such as dumplings.  

Visiting the Bund was quite impressive, especially since this was my first glimpse of the financial center of the city. This section of the city really only started to be built in 1994 and it has just exploded ever since. Later in the day we visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition where they have an architectural model of the entire city. My dad and I were completely blown away by the vast scope of the city and its wonderful architecture. It was fun just to walk around the model pointing out some the buildings we were familiar with, for example our hotel. It will be fun for me to come back after I’ve been in Shanghai for a while and see how much more I recognize.

We went to the Jade Buddha Temple which was also a great experience. Because it’s the middle of the New Year celebrations, the temple was very crowded with people praying for good luck and prosperity. One of my favorite parts of the tour was going to the temple’s herbal tea house. We were able to try out different teas and learn what each one was good for. While the teas were great one of the amazing parts was the guide from the tea house who presenting us the tea. Her English was by far the best I have yet to hear spoken in China by a native Chinese person. The most amazing part was that she said she learned it only from watching American movies and then later working at the tea house. Once she found out I spoke a little Chinese, we had a great time talking with about the benefits of studying languages and how both the United States and China have a lot to learn from each other. It ended up being so much fun!

The tour lasted until about 4pm and afterword my dad and I were exhausted. Our jet lag was really at its worst. My dad ended up going to bed at 7pm and I followed him soon after at 8.

Monday was really dedicated to trains. Somehow my dad found out that Shanghai has its very own train museum so, of course, it was a requirement that we check it out. The courtyard of the museum was complete with a steam engine and a private passenger railroad car- my dad was oh so happy. The inside was filled with the history of the Chinese railway and the advances that they have made until the present with their high speed trains. When we were through and returning our audio tour, I was trying to explain to the man working there how much my dad loves trains and that he was really impressed with the museum. This man then led us to a train car which turned out to be a train driving simulator. He booted up the system and then let my dad pretend to drive and even blow the horn! We then had a great talk about how advanced China has become in their technology and how American can really learn from what they are doing with their trains. These talks with some of the locals have been really great experiences and I’m excited for all that is waiting for me in the next four months! 

To top off the train filled day, my dad and I took a high speed train to the town of Suzhou which is about 2 hours away by car. The train ride however only took about 20 min. Unfortunately, we didn’t actually see anything of Suzhou except the train station, but it made my dad happy to go 320 km/h (200 mph). I’ll just have to come back on my own sometime.

Foodwise I’ve been humoring my dad and eating quite a bit of western food. We had Subway for dinner and our lunch was at the Park Hyatt which is located on the 86^th floor of the tallest building in Shanghai. It was all very fancy and the food was quite good, but my dad was kind of frustrating because he kept of confusing the waiters with his questions and instructions. He was insistent that since this was the best hotel in Shanghai the staff was guaranteed to speak perfect English. He did get to enjoy a nice burger so all is right in his world.

That’s all for now as I need to get some rest as we are taking another tour tomorrow, this time a tour on the Jewish history of Shanghai. Should be quite interesting! Hopefully the fireworks outside won’t keep me up all night like yesterday when they were going off all through the night~

Thanks for reading!

-Rachel