Shanghai: Day Seven and Eight
Mach 27, 2015
Last full day in Shanghai!! I can’t believe how quickly this week went by! It’s been a whirlwind experience and I feel so grateful I had this amazing experience! Thanks Mom and Dad!!!!!!!!! <3
Today we didn’t have any business meetings and instead spent the day doing touristy things. We took a two hour drive (it was raining so a one hour drive turned into a two hour drive) to Zhujiajiao Water Village. When we got to the outskirts of the city, we were dropped off and then we took gondolas down the canal to the center of the city. Once here people shopped around for a little while. And some of us did the coolest thing ever – we went to a fish spa!!! What is a fish spa you may ask? haha A fish spa is a place where for 30 RMB ($5 US) you can stick your feet into a pool of water for 20 minutes and little fish will clean your feet! This is the most crazy sensation! I did both little tiny fish and medium size fish, it is so ticklish when they nibble on you!!!!
After the fish spa, we headed over to our last arranged Chinese lunch. After lunch we sampled some authentic mochi and walked back to the bus.
We were supposed to go to the Shanghai museum next, but the bus ride took much longer because of the rain traffic and we couldn’t get there in time. So instead we went to a very high end shopping mall and spent some time walking around (because everything was much too expensive to buy – think Cartier). After that we headed over to Blue Frog in the Shanghai World Financial Center.
At Blue Frog we grabbed some yummy western style dinner and participated in happy hour (buy one get one free drinks) and the 100 SHOT CHALLENGE! Last year’s Shanghai group participated in it so of course we had to too! Even our professor, Tom, joined in! We now have our name on the wall of challenge completers at Blue Frog.
After Blue Frog, we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and then headed over to M1NT. M1NT is a really cool club because it has shark tanks inside! But unfortunately to get inside you had to pay like 8000 RMB which was not going to happen… Instead we attempted to walk to another club, but after about a half hour of walking we were pretty lost and grabbed a cab back to Luce. Luce was fun for a while and our club promoter, Neal, hooked us up with lots of free drinks. Then we tried to go to Muse, but it was too crowded so we went to Fusion instead. We stayed there until about 5 AM and somehow during that time I managed to catch my hair on fire… So that was good…
xoxo J
March 28, 2015
Today the Shanghai fun ended 🙁 Somehow my roommate and I had alarm trouble in the morning and missed the bus to the airport so we hustled and grabbed a taxi. Luckily, we had an aggressive cab driver so we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Chinese security and customs are much easier to go through than in the US. Then I met up with the other three people in my group and grabbed a quick snack before we boarded. We each bought four waters for the plane, but when we got on they took them from us!! Very frustrating… Then we headed out on our 11 hour flight back to San Francisco. I got lucky with my seat and ended up in an emergency exit aisle with no one next to me so I had a lot of space. And thanks to staying out so late last night I was able to sleep for about four hours of the flight. We landed and then headed through customs and back home. I miss Shanghai and wish I could have stayed longer and seen more of Asia, but I’m happy to be home. Home means easily accessible water, less cigarette smoke, normal, un-sketchy food. and clear blue skies. But I still feel compelled to say Ni Hao and Xie Xie… haha
Thanks for following along with my trip!
I’m excited to look through my pictures and will be posting them soon!
xoxo J