Highlights:
For our last day in China we took an early train ride to Hangzhou, a city famous for West Lake, a large and beautiful lake that has supposedly inspired many great poets and artists. 
We started off by taking a 14 cent public bus that stopped right across the lake. Unfortunately we didn’t know the name of the stop or exactly how many stops away it was, but I figured we would be able to as we approached. I don’t know where I got that idea into my head. Rule #1 of riding public buses in China – attempt to get to the bus exit doors one stop in advance because you will have to push through an crowd that will barely budge, and the bus driver will not wait for you to make your way out. Rule #2 – you probably won’t be able to see out the window to pinpoint your location due to the masses of people. I kept spotting potential landmarks, but none of them were on my map, so I made a judgment call to get 
We headed back out into the heat to walk around the city and get our massages. We also visited this cute touristy pedestrian walkway area where they sold lots of tea, and a side street full of delectable looking street foods. I entertained the idea of eating the street food but was overcome by that old oil stench smell that I often came across in China that completely grossed me out. We then walked along more of West Lake, stopped at Honeymoon again, and went shopping.
By this point we had about 40 minutes until our train left, so we tried to catch a cab. The train station was not far, probably only 2 km or a little over a mile away, but nobody would take us. I think it a combination of rush hour, shift changes, and it just wasn’t the direction they wanted to go. Every cab we were able to pull over ended up rejecting us. A bit frantic, we started walking toward the station even though by this point we couldn’t make it there in time. A few huge blocks into our walk, we saw a cab reject a man, and my mom ran after it, and for some reason this cab driver took pity on us and agreed to take us to the train station. Although I don’t know what he was saying, his laughter and tone translated into Silly women, their train leaves in 15 minutes, hahahaha. We were a bit afraid of what he would charge us because he wouldn’t start the meter, I thought he would really rip us off and charge us over 50 yuan, but he asked for 15 yuan. We jumped out and ran through security and to our gate, and made it with time to spare. With that last adrenaline rush, we were on the train back to Shanghai, and soon back to the US.
After all the posts full of picture, this one sadly has none due to the nature of our day.
First, we ate an epic buffet sunday brunch at our hotel. I have never seen such an immense buffet with so many types of cuisines ever before in my life. I’ve been to a few buffet breakfasts and brunches in my hotel stays, but this one topped them all. Free flowing alcohol and champagne, Chinese, dim sum, Mexican, Indian, Middle Eastern, French, caviar, seafood…you name it, they probably served it. In addition to the food there was a live orchestra, dancing, and acrobatic act. There was no time for a food coma however, because we still had some last minute Shanghai sites and activities to do!
It was off to the French Concession, an artsy area full off cute trinket and clothing shops and lots of art galleries. I saw so many beautiful photographs that I now wish I bought and had on the wall of my apartment. After about an hour there, we headed across town to see a Chinese Acrobatics show. The show we saw was called Era:Intersection of Time, and intertwined the elements of traditional Chinese acrobatics with modern themes and technology. I enjoyed this combination approach, it actually reminded me a lot of the cirque du soliel show, and I was often left in awe of the performers strength, grace, flexibility, and fearlessness. The only picture I have from the day is of 5 of the 7 motorcyclists that drove simultaneously inside a metal cage. How does one exactly decide this will be their future profession?
Pudong
On the Pudong side we craned our necks up towards the sky to see the ridiculously tall buildings sprouting from nearly everywhere. We went into the Shanghai World Financial Center, the second tallest building the world, but decided not to pay the admission fee to go to the top since it was another cloudy day in China. We then headed over to the oriental pearl tv tower, that funky looking building with two spheres in the above picture. From there, we grabbed a quick 40 minute river cruise, and from that I finally got to see what the bund looks like, well kind of since its under construction, but I got the picture. We then headed over a massive mall where there was just about everything going on. There were endless stores, restaurants, and even kickboxing in the middle of the mall. For dinner we decided to try a new cuisine – Macanese. I had wanted to take a day trip over to Macau from Hong Kong, but we didn’t end up having time. Macau is famous for their Portuguese-style egg custards, and I must say they were more delicious than any Chinese egg custard I’ve had before. We also tried a meat platter, noodle, curry, and a coffee-tea drink, but the egg custard by far was the highlight of the meal.
Maglev
To finish off our day, we took the subway over to the Maglev. This high speed train goes from the outer city to the airport in 8 minutes. For comparison, it took us about an hour to get into the city from the airport our first day. The train gets up to speeds of 301 km/hr or to about 188 miles per hour. As you can see my mom approves this form of transportation.
YuYuan Garden
Our third day in Shanghai was packed with seeing the sites and trying even more new cuisines. First stop of the day was the Yu Yuan Gardens. Before we walked around Shanghai’s fine example of a Chinese Garden, we had to stop by the city’s most famous joint to grab some more tasty Xiao long bao. Right outside the garden there was a recreated touristy area designed to emulate the older architecture of the garden. The line for the dumplings was long and slow, but in the meantime I peered through the window to see how the dumplings that would soon be in my stomach. You could either get an order of 8 or 16 dumplings, I opted for the later. They weren’t as good as the dumplings I had the day before, but I still devoured all of them and had a stomach ache for hours afterwards.
After walking through the gardens, we headed off to the other side of the river to visit Pudong.
A peek of of what was to come…New Pudong buildings framed between the old YuYuan Garden.
There is construction everywhere in Shanghai. The Bund riverside promenade walkway is under remodeling, high rises are going up left and right, and there is dust and scaffolding everywhere. This is partially because Shanghai is a bustling metropolis bound to take over as the world’s financial center in 2020 and also due to Shanghai holding the World Expo in 2010. To learn more about this expansion, we visited the Urban Planning museum which detailed the plan for coping with Shanghai’s spread and how to properly implement infrastructure and sustainability into that future. There was also a floor dedicated to the upcoming world expo which Shanghai is putting a lot of money and pride into. There were several interesting visual and architectural elements in Shanghai’s site design as well as for each countries pavilion. The mascot for the expo is Haibao or the blue character seen in the picture below. The mascot is supposed to emulate the Chinese character for people but quite frankly it looks like a tooth with a wisp of toothpaste on its head to me.
We then headed across the street to the Shanghai Museum which is known as being one of the best museums in China. We viewed the museum’s extensive jade, coin, painting, and bronze collections. Some of the jade pieces were really intricate especially considering the tools they had at the time – I especially liked the jade dragons. I’ve always had a fascination with dragons since I was very young.
For dinner, we strolled over to Xin tiandi, a rebuilt yuppie area that basically looked like a reconstructed piece of the United States. On a side note, there were so many McDonalds, Starbucks, Coldstones, and Haagen Daaz stores everywhere – the first 2 I understand and expected globally but I don’t understand the abundance of ice cream shops. We went over to this area to try some of the most Xiao, or pork dumplings in a delicious skin filled with meaty juice. They lived up to the hype. The quality of the meat, the texture and thickness of the skin, and the flavor of the juice were superb.
As we walked back home we noticed the street was adorned with bleachers, the trees were adorned with Christmas and lantern lights, and small triangular flags were tied between trees that made it look like a marathon was going to be run through the streets the next day. Upon closer inspection, the flags said ‘Shanghai Tourism Festival’, and there was to be a parade on the street the next day. Although we didn’t see the parade, lots of other special events occurred over the next few days. One day I was walking down Nanjing road to go to the ATM and there was a herd of people dressed up in Chicken costumes. What that signified…I will never know.
Just steps away from our hotel was Shanghai’s main shopping street - Nanjing Road. This pedestrian walkway has every practically every shop imaginable.
Nanjing road of the past and present
At night the street is abuzz with hoards of people and the street glows from all the florescent lighting and brightly light advertisements. Apparently, even Paris Hilton has her own store on Nanjing road. Not surprisingly, all the handbags in her store were massively marked down.
My mom and I went on a mini food adventure. She bought a pound of her favorite beef jerky, we ate dumplings, I had the best drink of my life (herbal tea with grass jelly), and we shared scallion pancakes off the street despite the questionable hygiene practices of the vendor.
I had an unhealthy dinner consisting of a fruity tea with passionfruit, a beard papa’s cream puff (since I had never tried one before), a mango dessert with tapoica and pomelo, and soup. This wasn’t your ordinary soup – first they gave you a tray of ingredients including vegetables, meats, an egg, and unidentifiable other edible dishes. They then brought out a bowl of hot broth with noodles, into which we dumped the contents of all our small dishes, and the ingredients cooked themselves. I thought this was a fun meal to eat, but there was yet more food to be tried and eaten! I never wanted to eat the same thing twice while in China, there are too many delicious and unknown things to try!
Our primary reason for coming to Xi’an was to see the famous terracotta warriors, and they did not disappoint. I feel like sometimes I get a little skeptical of the tourist hot spots of the world. Perhaps they won’t live up to the expectation, or maybe they’ve become over commerialized and feel ridiculously touristy. For example, the leaning tower of Pisa, not much else to see there. I was pleasantly surprised by the Terracotta warriors, and the site went beyond my expectations. The first area we stepped into I felt like I had stepped into a football stadium full of hundreds of warriors. There were so many warriors with different poses and facial expressions and they were still in such good condition! The amazing thing is that there are even more warriors to be discovered! In addition to the warriors, there were horses with really round butts which my mom really liked. Also, in the middle of the building there was an excavation in progress!
To get back to the city we grabbed a public bus. A woman sat down next to me and started speaking Chinese. I explained I only spoke English, and she was surprised because she thought I was Chinese. We proceeded to talk over the next hour – she had been visiting her Aunt outside of the city, but was on her way back home. She gave me a fruit only grown in that area, and although I had no idea what it was at the time, it turned out to be a pomegranate! At the end there was a bit of confusion because she tried to give me 5 yuan. I had no idea why she was giving me money, and she explained it was for the bus fare. Then I thought she wanted me to pay for her bus fare for talking to her in English. I had read in the tour books there are students who pretend they just want an English speaking friend and they try to sell you expensive art. Then I thought she wanted me to pay for her fruit. There was lots and lots of confusion. Anyways what had happened was that when my mom and I got on the bus, I paid the 7 yuan fare for both of us. My mom switched seats because she also wanted a window view. My new Chinese friend later got on the bus, sat down next to me, and when she tried to pay, the fare collector said I had already paid for her (not realizing I had paid for my mom who was now sitting in a different seat).
My mom and I then walked around the city wall and came across groups of tents selling food and providing musical entertainment to locals. We also walked the scary spectacle.past 2 Chinese women yelling and trying to attack each other. We had wanted to bike on top of Xi’an’s city walls but got back too late. We then tried to catch a taxi back to our hotel, but were unsuccessful. This random Chinese women asked if needed help and bought us to a bus that would take us back. She also helped us cross the hectic and death trap of a street. According to my mom, she was a angel out of nowhere.
We only had one day left to hit Beijing’s major sites – The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven! We were unable to visit these sites the previous 2 days because of the preparations for China’s 60th anniversary as a country. These preparations even squashed our dinner plans last night after we returned from the great wall! A bunch of streets in the vicinity of our hotel were closed off to pedestrian and vehicular traffic because the government needed to practice rolling army tanks down those streets for October 1st. Even if we went out, all the stores and restaurants in the area were closed. Thus, we had a lot to accomplish for our last day in Beijing!
First we stopped by the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square which were simply overwhelming.
From the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square we walked to the Temple of Heaven. I thought it was really close by, only a few blocks away, but it ended up being quite a hike. However, in the process we definitely got to see more of what China is like and saw this nerdy bridge!
For dinner we feasted on Peking Duck. We went to a highly rated restaurant called Da Dong, and even though we had to wait over an hour for a table it was the best duck I’ve ever had. The chefs prepared and roasted the ducks right at the entrance of the restaurant in an open air kitchen/oven area which kept us entertained until we finally got our chance to try their specialty.
Happy mom.
The Great Wall is epic. My mom and I decided to visit the Jinshangling portion of the wall against the urgings of our hotel. They kept trying to convince us to go to more touristy, jam-packed, and closer portions of the wall. This section of the wall is a further drive away, but it was well worth it. Most people who decide to make the trek out here start at the Jinshangling section and walk to the Simitai section. That hike takes about 5 hours and requires ascending steep and loose sections of the wall. On this particular day it was also raining on and off, making the stone slippery. Once we got to the wall, you could go left toward Simitai on a rugged unrepaired section of the wall, or go right on a partially rebuilt part of the wall. My mom and I decided to walk as far as we felt toward Simitai on the rugged section, return to the starting point, and then walk as far as we felt to the right. We spent about 3 hours at the wall, and saw only about 25 other people that day compared to this possible nightmare http://greatwall.se/blog/wp-content/badaling.jpg if we went to the closer sections of the wall! We got a great workout and enjoyed this ancient marvel in peace and quiet.
At a certain point my mom stopped to take a break, and I continued on toward Simitai. This is where I decided to turn around and meet up with my mom again. Although I’m sure I could have climbed up this portion of the Great Wall, I didn’t really want to climb back down it. 
