day #3! michelle sent us on a scavenger hunt to the xintiandi area (新天地) in order to see some important landmarks and get to know shanghai's public transportation. TEAM HAIBAO included mary, john, ophus and me. i'll spoil the surprise and tell you we came in first. muahaha. of the various available prizes, i chose this pencil bag:
"my other bag is a louis vuitton"
HA.
our scavenger hunt took us 10 stops on the extremely modern metro from wujiaochang (our most convenient metro station to the center of the city) to xintiandi, the hip-westernish entertainment center of downtown shanghai. from xintiandi we walked to the meeting place of the first Communist Party Congress; the former residences of Chiang Kai Shek, Sun Yat Sen, and Zhou Enlai; 复兴公园 or Fuxing Park, which houses statues of Marx and Engels;
a street corner shop with amazing meat OR vegetarian 包子 baozi; and finally through shopping and textile districts, back to the metro. for me, the highlight was the park because it's saturday, so lots of people were out and about playing mahjong or practicing tai chi (with coke bottles balanced on their heads!). there, we were also stopped by an older man who basically shared his life story with us.
luckily we had ophus to translate and even look up words such as "sub prime mortgage crisis" on his iphone.
so that was today! yesterday night was bunches of fun too though; i met up with wang yangyang (lawrence) for dinner. we met at an IHS conference last summer, so it was a wonderful reunion. he showed me around fudan since he has lots of friends who study here, and then we had dinner in wujiaochang.... at chinese pizza hut!
yes, as you can see, a classy institution. obviously, it is still extremely well priced. but it's sit-down, gourmet, and you can enjoy a three course meal of american classics with some very interesting chinese twists. these include salad, spaghetti, mashed potatoes, chowder, cheesecake, and i won't even start on the pizza selection. after pizza hut we found a bar where we could watch world cup game #1, mexico v. south africa. good times! in fact, mary and i plan to go back downtown tonight and to explore and enjoy the second night of the matches. it's sweet being in this timezone because the games are at reasonable times! 7:30 tonight is south korea v. greece.
shanghai is feeling a little more accessible to me after today! which is major progress :) but i miss my homies in dc and oc dearly :( 你们要来上海！
At GW, Scavenger Hunts are considered hazing. Anyhow, I wish our Pizza Huts were that fancy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, love the friendly old man. Did he have a Great Chinese Story? (This is hard for me not to describe anything as Great American).
I love Pizza Hut's in other countries.
ReplyDeleteI also love you in Pizza Hut's in other countries.
Mahaha glad you had a fabulous day m'dear.
The photos add so much to your blog. I really feel like I am there with you!
ReplyDeleteyaaaay so happy to hear from you all :)
ReplyDeleteandrew - unfortunately old man did not speak particularly clearly or use vocabulary that was familiar to me. i know he loved americans, until the subprime mortgage crisis, and then he became suspicious of them. however, he never liked british people. even before the crisis.
manisha - your happiness is my happiness as well. how is schoolio? i think of you so often here. only "smells like india" = "smells like china, whoa"
mama - i'm so glad you like them!!! no photos today but i'll write a little bit. kiss kiss