China, Day 3

On my third day in Shanghai, I started out my day by walking to the nearest subway station.  I decided to take some pictures along the way.  The streets near me were less megalomania and inhabited by working class people.

In China, at least in most parts of Shanghai, people had long posts connected to their windows outside their apartments where they would hang their laundry.  Lining the streets was underwear, pants, shirts, and sheets flapping in the wind.

On the subway on my way to downtown Shanghai, a man pushed his handicapped son through the subway.  I felt horrible looking upon the son, who couldn’t even control himself enough to stop the drool from coming out of his mouth.  There were clippings from Chinese newspapers all over the son’s wheelchair of which one read that the man would not give up his fight against the government.  I don’t know the whole story, but it seemed to me that the father was using his son to beg for money and guilting people into giving their money.  Quite possibly, however, the man was showing that the communist government wouldn’t help him support his son.

I took the subway to People’s Square and started taking more pictures of the area, which is surrounded by skyscrapers and was extremely busy for the Asian thanksgiving holiday known as Chuseok.  After taking a few pictures, a Chinese man about my age asked me if I could take a picture of him and his girlfriend.  Then he talked to me for about 2-3 minutes and asked where I was from and why I was visiting.  I told him that I teach in South Korea and that I was planning to go to the Shanghai museum.  He told me that is where he had come from but there was a long line, so he was going to go to a tea festival close-by.  He suggested that I do the same, but I declined.

Just before walking to stand in line at the museum, I was asked to take a picture for a couple of girls from Xi’An.  One of them spoke English quite well, while the other one did not speak English.  Many Asian women who don’t speak English are quite shy, as if they feel they don’t deserve attention from a foreigner.  They act like a cornered animal and cower.  It’s quite interesting.  Anyways, the girl from Xi’An shook my hand and welcomed me to China.  I told her I was going to visit Xi’An and she said she thought I would enjoy it (which I later did).

From there, I went to the museum.  There was about a 40-minute wait to get in, but I decided to stand in line anyways.  In line, I happened to be standing next to a man from Russia and a Chinese man who both spoke fluent English, so we had a talk about traveling and places we like to visit.  The museum itself was interesting, especially the exhibits of jade and porcelain, both of which were made popular by China thousands of years ago.

Jade was extremely hard to take good pictures of in the lighting they had the pieces presented in at the museum.  The backdrops were blue and the lighting was very low.  Jade is usually white and slightly transparent, so flash does not work.  I was able to get a few good pictures.  The blue backdrop wreaked havoc on my camera’s focus ability though and naturally looked grainy.

I learned that the Chinese started to produce porcelain 2,000 years ago and it took many hundreds of years to perfect the use of different colors.  The shiny porcelain that is made today is not the same as the porcelain made throughout history.  The Chinese made porcelain was extremely sought after on the ancient Silk Road.  Shakespeare even mentions Chinese porcelain in his writing, suggesting that no other porcelain is as good as Chinese porcelain.

There was a nice exhibit of Columbian artifacts.  It was one of two areas in the museum in which photos were not allowed.  I snapped a couple and was immediately told not to do so by a museum guard.  Everything was made out of gold and extremely ornate.  It was enjoyable to see and I wish I could have taken pictures of the exhibit for others to see and to remember later on myself.

I learned a bit about traditional finger painting in China.  Men would grow out their fingernails and dip them in ink to draw on paper.  The paintings are quite breathtaking and usually portray things in nature or a scene of people.

One of my favorite things in the museum was a room full of artifacts from the ancient Silk Road.  Most of the artifacts were coins that travelers would use to trade for spices, jewels, gold, and horses.  Seeing thousands of years old coins was awesome, as they didn’t resemble the coins that men use today.  Some of them were in a shape much like a banana and specified by the weight of gold or silver.

In Asia, people still use stamps and seals to sign their letters.  Everything “official” has a stamp with red ink (happiness/luck).  At the museum, there was an exhibit of stamps and seals used for thousands of years.  Most of them were made out of precious stone, such as jade, and had carved animals on them such as oxen or dragons.

After exploring the museum for an ample amount of time, I ventured a few stops on the subway and visited the Shanghai Aquarium.  The aquarium was mostly tunnels in which you could either walk or stand on a slow moving belt that would take you on a ride under the water.  There were the usual sharks, turtles, tide fish, seals, etc.  I did see one very interesting fish that was bright purple, the same color as Barney.  It had a snout on it that dangled like the trunk of an elephant.  The shape of the fish was different than most, as the fins made it look like a torpedo with an elephant trunk.

The aquarium was quite expensive.  It was about $28 U.S., but it was still packed with people.  Some tanks had so many people around them that I would have to push through the crowd to get a glimpse.  I was felt up more times than I’d be on Broadway Ave.

I came across some reef sharks that reminded me of a completely stupid “comedy” movie called “Strange Wilderness”.  In this movie, the main character is a stoner who tries to take over his dad’s wilderness show, but knows nothing about animals.  At one point, he describes sharks and it is the only part of the movie that made me laugh and it happened to make me laugh a lot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCpKp73kJtI

After walking through the museum, I realized how exhausted I was, so I took a break and sat along the landscaping area around the aquarium building.  There were about one hundred Chinese people sitting on either side of me and they all were eating junk, sidewalk food.  I spotted a Cold Stone Creamery and asked for a “Like It” size of strawberry blonde (strawberries, bananas, and pie crust).  The lady didn’t even fill the cup with ice cream and I wanted to say, “I ‘Like It’ more than that!”

This may be a little T.M.I. for some people, but important to my time in Shanghai.  Shanghai was hot, between 80 and 85 degrees everyday and extremely humid.  I was walking probably about 5 miles everyday.  Therefore, I began to chafe and I chafed badly.  By the third day in Shanghai, I could barely walk.  I would take about a hundred steps and break for a bit before moving on.

So, when I decided to make the most of my third day in Shanghai and went to the largest park in the city, Century Park, I was whimpering in pain.  I walked the entire length of the park, which took two hours.  Thank God for park benches.

Century Park surrounded a lake, with many people peddling paddle boats around the lake.  The lake was full of Chinese carp that swam in the shallows.  I saw my first wild lotus plants, which was cool because I learned a lot about lotus plants and Buddhism in China.

The lotus flower has a unique characteristic in that it blooms and sheds its seeds at the same time. In the context of Buddhism, the theory of karma says that, just like the lotus flower, our life is made up of cause and effect. Every cause — be it action, word or thought — will imprint an effect that can be seen in this lifetime or in future lives.  Also, in Buddhist paintings and sculpture, the Buddha is often seated on a lotus flower. The lotus produces a beautiful flower even with its roots in the dirtiest water. The symbolism is that a person can rise above being rooted in the ugliness and suffering of this world, and should try to be pure and help others with the beauty of the spirit.

I saw many other wild flowers that were alive with honey bees.  In the grass fields, many people were having picnics and playing with their dogs.  It was a relaxing atmosphere, away from all the traffic and madhouse lifestyle of Shanghai.  I witnessed my first street sweeper, which still do exist in China.  Imagine being delegated to sweeping the streets and sidewalks with a straw broom and doing that as your job everyday.

Around the park, people road bike vehicles.  I have no idea what to call them, as up to four people could peddle at the same time, but the bike was shaped like a small car.  I sat down, sore with chafeage, and watched families and couples peddle by on their bike machine thingies.

After leaving Century Park, I decided to take a walk down Nanjing Pedestrian Road.  I was asked no less than one hundred times if I would like to buy a watch.  “Do you want a watch?  Rolex.”  That was the catchphrase.  I wanted to ask, “Do you want me to ruin your day?  Punch.”

After getting back to the subway stop where my hotel was located, I was still amazed by the number of bikes and mopeds everywhere.  Literally, in any glance taken in the city, dozens of each could be spotted.  Millions of bikes and mopeds and me wondering how many people get hit by cars riding on those things.

To close out the night, I had eel fried rice.  Eel meat is quite delicious and mixed with rice, it was heaven.  It was nice to sit down and give my chafing a break.  Walking home, I noticed spinning lights that look like the lights outside of barber shops, only these were pink.  I put two and two together and realized this places, which claimed to be massage parlors were in fact brothels.  Women sat inside of them knitting and watching tv.  Thus, includes my third day in Shanghai.

The 6th Degree

You know what I wish?

I wish that I lived during a time when people weren’t such passive aggressive, diaper wearing babies and actually held debates while standing behind their ideologies 100% without veiling them to the 6th degree.  I can at least respect a far-left liberal, one who is entrenched in socialist/communist thinking if they would actually come right out and say it.  Instead, right now, the President and the White House hide behind preposterous 1,000 page bills and then feign stupidity along the way.  Just watch any news conference with press secretary Gibbs and you’ll lose a few IQ points.

I wish people didn’t completely shut down or get so angry when thinking people share their opinions when they are prompted to when the media, textbooks, and just about everyone and everything else tries to innodate them with thoughts about moral relativism and “acceptance”.

But instead, conversations boil down to crappy television shows, horrible tastes in music, or how each other’s days at work sucked, because we all know that work sucks.  One can’t even turn on shows like Letterman and not have to watch as he asks the President, while the country is flopping around like a fish out of water, “How’s the family?”  As if anyone should really care about that as the country is 10 trillion dollars in debt and Congress stinks so bad, public urinal troughs at ballparks have smell even better after a playoff series.

Whenever any substantial matter, such as faith or politics comes up in conversation, people change the subject citing it makes them uncomfortable.

You know why? Because people are lazy, that’s why.  People make time to sit on the throne reading celebrity gossip, but can’t stomach 10-minutes of news.  It’s not wise to not know what is going on in the world or to only subjugate themselves to one form of thought, always “gaining knowledge” but never actually seeing what the picture actually is showing them.

People literally can’t get out of the trench they are in that they dug to shield themselves from their own true ideologies.  They stand by what they are taught, force-fed really, and never question it.  For instance, I had a South Korean student three-weeks ago write a report on the Big Bang theory, stating that it is correct but never giving any substantial reason(s) why it is correct about how the universe was created.  So, I challenged the entire class with an assignment, telling them I would reward them with three signatures in the back of their workbooks, something that is unheard of and looked at highly by their parents at home.  This reward gives them a chance to get out of detentions or earn points at school and shows their parents they are listening in class.

My challenge to the class was to write down, “How does something come from nothing?” and “How does one explain the theory of entropy in light of the Big Bang theory?” and then show the questions to their science teachers.  One student came back and said their teacher simply told them, “Because it’s right.”  None of the other students ever did anything with the questions.

Some might say, “Well, Tim, they are just 6th graders.  They are immature.”  Did not Jesus say children are blessed and that he wishes that grown men had the faith of children?  Did Jesus himself not say to let the children come to him when his disciples scolded them for trying to come to Jesus?

My point is, that now, even children are disillusioned and can’t see the forest through the trees.  Moral relativism has become so prevalent that even 12-23 year old children are pacified and don’t question anything.  So, imagine and even see how bad things have become with older generations, full of people who are “smart” and “compassionate” and “loving” and “giving”, when it’s really all about standing in the shadows and never taking charge of anything, just doing a great job of blaming those who actually stand up for their beliefs for being “radical” and “liars”.

A study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News’ stories on Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.

On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories—a spread of 59 points.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent, non-partisan public opinion research organization that studies attitudes toward politics, the press and public policy issues. In this role it serves as a valuable information resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars and citizens.

President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, but has done absolutely nothing to change the status of peace in the world.  In fact, the war in Afghanistan has gotten worse, the violence in Pakistan is growing, Iran/North Korea/Venuzuela/etc. still hate America and are the cause for the Pentagon to build bunker busters that can blast through 100 feet of concrete in preparations to have to blow up nuclear missile bunkers across the globe.

The White House called Fox News not real news, yet it’s the only station that has covered the corruption of ACORN, Obama’s extreme advisors and czars, and brought to light the lies of the most corrupt administration ever, one that is hellbent on continuing to bankrupt the nation and spread it’s socialist agenda like the plague.

And you know what, the majority of people either buy into all of this and eat it up like ice cream from a spoon or say, “Meh, it doesn’t really affect me” or “I’d rather not comment on that.”

This shows that people truly now lean to the left and are comfortable in their relativistic thinking without a moral compass.  That to them, God is dead.

Most of those that actually have an opinion don’t have spines enough to stand up for their opinion in numbers that matter anymore.  Instead, they pacify themselves with Glenn Beck and Hannity and Limbaugh, who actually have spines.  It’s not wrong to agree with the opposition and listen to them, but why not DO something about it?

Doesn’t the government work for we the people?

Leftist whinos like Bill Mauher actually have the spine to say what the left is thinking, that Americans are stupid and need to be dragged into things.  At least Bill Mauher has a spine.

Another problem is, so many conservatives are only fiscally conservative, but don’t care much about the social aspects of politics.  Why?  Because they have no God either.

I will come right out and say it:  Both parties in the government suck right now.  It’s all about relativism and everything is looked at through “world-vision” goggles.

I was reading an article the other day about a study that questioned thousands of people who claimed they were question.  It asked them if they believed that the Bible is inerrant, that everything in the Bible was from God, that Jesus was perfect, that Jesus is the Savior of man, etc.  Only 1 out of 50 said they believed the statement.  Only 17% of “born-again” Christians believed it.

An article was placed on FoxNews recently about how since 1990, there are 12% less Christians in the U.S. and the number of those with no faith has doubled.  The very next day, an article from the most comprehensive religious study ever done showed that 1 in 4 people in the world are now Muslim.

So, while people act like jello molds, America’s freedoms and greatness are going to hell-in-a-hand-basket.   People sit idly by worshiping idols and show no faith or hold an opinion other than “Let’s change the subject”.

Yet, get someone talking about last night’s episode of their favorite tv show and they can talk to you for a half  hour and remember most of the dialogue.  Ask them who the Secretary of the State is and they probably won’t know.  Ask them to profess what their faith is and they will stutter and fail.

The world buries itself in layer after layer of fluff to cover up the reality of things.  Therefore, I wish it would go back to a time when people could actually debate with each other about things of substance.

China, Day 2

My second day in Shanghai started off with a jolt.  At 3am, the alarm went off on the room’s clock.  It must have been saved by a tenant prior to me, as I planned on sleep in this morning.  I was in the middle of a dream state and because I was out of it and it was so dark in my room, I couldn’t seem to find the clock.  It probably was quite a sight to see me trying to feel my way to the clock and saying things like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I ate the continental breakfast, which was most definitely Chinese style.  There were noodles, fried rice, sausages, ham on bread, peppered green beans, and hard-boiled eggs soaked in a black sauce.  It was delicious.

I decided to make today the “go-everywhere-that-isn’t-particularly-close-to-each-other-day”.  I first visited the Jade Buddha Temple.  It’s a Buddhist holiday, so there were a hundreds of people there praying to the statues.

I was given a tour by a Chinese man who spoke good English.  Apparently Evander Holifield visited the Jade Buddhist Temple before to pray to the Buddha of strength, which has 8 arms and fights with multiple weapons.  At the end of the tour, the guide took me to the shop and tried to get me to buy souvenirs.  I refused at least ten times.  He was so insistent that I said, “I am going back outside to take pictures” and walked away from him.

After getting away from the guide, I was able to explore all the statues and take pictures.  It’s sad seeing so many people who are lost, searching for “enlightenment”.  At one point, I saw an older mother and her son, who looked like he was in his 20s, bowing to some of the statues.  Then I noticed that the mother was leading her son from statue to statue and it seemed that the younger man didn’t really want to do what she was telling him to do.  Of course, I could have been reading that situation completely wrong, but that is how I perceived it.

I moved on to St. Ignatius Cathedral, one of few in China.  Mass is still held on Sundays for nearly 2,000 people.  The cathedral itself was beautiful, but I disagree with so much emphasis on Mary in Catholicism.  I took pictures to document this disagreement.

Outside the cathedral, there were many married couples taking pictures.  It was quite a beautiful scene in the sunshine, as brides in their dresses are always cheerful and bright.

I took the subway to Luphao Temple next.  The temple is the most authentic temple area still standing in Shanghai.  Shanghai itself is very westernized and much of it has little to do with tradition.  There was a huge pagoda and the same Buddhist statues, representing the same things that were at Jade Buddha temple.  The smell of incense was strong yet again because of the people praying to the different Buddhas.

I ate my first traditional Chinese meal.  I have no idea what it was called because I pointed randomly at a menu, which was quite brave of me because I didn’t even use a picture.  It ended up being chicken soup with red peppers, garlic, green onion, red onion, celery, and chicken parts still on the bone.  It was a little on the spicy side and made my nose run, but tasted good.  I finished as much as I could and then ordered a bowl of rice.  I found out that the rice here in China tastes different than in Korea, which is weird.  It does not taste as good.  In fact, it tasted earthy.

I realized that I still had plenty of daylight left, so I took the trip to Yu Yuan garden, a five-acre garden in the heart of the city.  The area was so busy and packed with people, I felt claustrophobic and started to get short-tempered because I continually was being bumped into or pushed out of the way.  The noise of the constant honking and people shouting was immense.

The garden itself was extremely beautiful and serene.  Surprisingly, there were not many people inside the garden area, just outside of it at the shops.  I took my time admiring the landscaping and the large coy fish within the ponds.  There was a father and his daughter at the edge of one of the ponds.  The father was holding the girls waist while she fed the coy fish crumbs and tried to touch the fish.  It was a beautiful scene of fatherly love and the trust of a daughter towards her dad.

After leaving the garden, I visited the Temple of the Gods.  This was a rip-off and waste of ten dollars.  It was cheaply built and obviously for tourists.  Again, the same represented Buddha statues as at the Jade Buddhist Temple were present.  By the third time of seeing these representative statues in one day, I was bored with such things and left within a few short minutes.

I still had daylight left, so I tried to find a taxi to take me to the Bund.  Near the Yu Yuan garden, it took me about a half hour to find a taxi driver who wasn’t trying to rip me off.  One taxi driver tried to charge me fifty dollars for the less than ten minute taxi ride.  I would have walked, but I had no idea where I was at the time.

The Bund is an area with 14 different buildings built around the turn of the 20^th century in different western styles.  My favorite building was the Peace Hotel, which is divided into two parts by Nanjung Rd.  Near the Bund, there was much construction, which left the area that usually was a walkway to take pictures of the buildings closed.  I was forced to take pictures on the sidewalk next to the buildings, which made it difficult to get any good pictures because the buildings are so tall and being 15 feet away from them doesn’t allow for good pictures.  I think some of the pictures I took turned out well.  The Bund is directly across from Pudong, so I took some pictures of the Pearl Tower, Shanghai World Financial Building, Yao Mao Building, and the rest of the skyline as the sun was setting on the other side of the city.  The sun reflecting off of the skyscrapers was blinding and could easily burn the retinas.

The area was full of police men and military men.  Every ten feet, one of them was stationed to keep people off the road.  It was the most police men that I have ever seen in one area in my life.

I found out from one of the police men that the nearest subway station was under construction, so I would have to hoof it about two miles by foot to People’s Square.  Along the way, I was in a sea of people shopping.  Throughout today, I was asked no less than 100 times (literally) if I would like to buy a “Rolex” watch or DVDs.  If it weren’t against the law, I would have knocked these skuzzy salesmen and women out, but I just ignored them instead.

People’s Square is near a pedestrian only shopping district with a lot of lights and more skyscrapers.  I have never seen so many skyscrapers, not even in New York.

After about 45 minutes of walking, I reached the subway station and road home.  I was exhausted and the naughty parts of my inner thighs were chafing.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  Plus, I have visited almost everything on my list of things to see.  I decided that seeing six major areas of Shanghai would be enough for one day.

I decided that I don’t need to be adventurous with the food.  After being in Korea for 8 months, I don’t feel guilty for not eating the local food anymore.  I’ve decided that it’s not a bad thing to enjoy the food that you grew up eating.  So, for dinner, I ate a double cheeseburger and some French fries.  I decided that trying to eat fat and little meat off of a bone in sauce that is spiced up with dried red peppers just doesn’t taste good to me and I’d much rather enjoy my food than willing myself not to cry from the spiciness.  I am determined to find a Peking duck restaurant.  It will probably cost an arm and a leg, but I am on the vacation of a lifetime and don’t care.

I also have come to the conclusion that nowhere in the world is as clean as the U.S.  Korea smells like poop and vomit.  China smells even worse.  Sometimes, it was as if someone was holding poop under my nose as I walked around parts of Shanghai on this day.  It was worse the pig dung and that’s just wrong.

When I got back to my room, my electronic door key didn’t work, so I asked for a new one.  I was issued one without question, but after sitting in my room for about 5 minutes, the desk receptionist called me and said they couldn’t find my reservation for my room.  So, I took my hotel voucher to her and she said that they couldn’t find me on their records.  For about a minute, I was worried they were going to make me leave the hotel, until the other receptionist said she found my information and everything was ok.  Yeah, everything better be ok or unhappy Tim would have thrown a huge fit.

To close out the night, I took an extended shower and watched some X-Files.  I could have gone out and roamed around, but I was exhausted.  I walked about twice as much as I did the first day on my second day.  Plus, I am not one for the night life.  I don’t feel like getting herpes and spending money wastefully on ten dollar alcoholic drinks.

China, Day 1

After 4 hours of restless sleep, I managed to get up at 4:30am and get to the bus station literally 1 min before the bus left for the airport.  I arrived at the airport at 6:20am.  I checked in then proceeded to sit around until my flight left at 8:55am.  I did find a Burger King at the airport.  Everything else but the coffee places were closed as far as dining went.  In Korea, they don’t serve breakfast food anywhere, literally.  So, I had a double bacon cheeseburger, French fries, and a coke at about 7am.  It was super healthy.

Soon after boarding the plane, I was served “lunch”.  It was spicy rice with kimchi (fermented cabbage with red pepper sauce), shrimp (yeah, allergic), a round roll, and a piece of cake.  I did like the roll and cake and drank some grapefruit juice and a cup of apple juice too.  I did manage to choke down the rice and kimchi, as it was essential to eat something as the Burger King had already gone through me.

The flight was only an hour and forty minutes.  Flights are always cool, as it’s cool to fly.  However, I had less than an inch of room between my knees and the seat in front of me.  I am not even exaggerating.  I took a picture of it just to prove it.  The attendants were all gorgeous women, so that helped.  I also didn’t have a can of Coca-Cola explode on my butt (yes, this did happen) like when I flew to Korea for 17 hours.  Seventeen hours with a wet tush is not ok.

I arrived in Shanghai at the Pudong airport at 9:40am local time and exchanged my Korean won for Chinese Yuan.  Then, I took the Maglev train, which is the fastest train in the world.  It reaches the top speed of 431kmph.  The ride from the airport to the final destination is less than ten minutes.  It was ridiculously fast.

I then had my first difficulty.  I couldn’t figure out how to get a subway card.  I tried a help booth and they sent me to another booth which sent me to a machine.  I figured out the machine by watching some Chinese natives buy their tickets.  After the first time, it was easy to get a ticket for the subway and I found out that the subway system in Shanghai is even easier to use than Seoul, which I didn’t think was possible.

On my way to my first subway ride, a little girl who was holding her grandmother’s hand looked over and saw me walking next to her and said, “WOAH” and then said something really fast in Chinese to her grandma.  Again, I am a zoo animal on display to Asians because I have red hair and freckles, both things they rarely see.

I arrived at my hotel just before noon and checked in without any difficulties.  The taxi driver that took me from the subway station to the hotel got lost for about ten minutes, only for me to find out that the subway station is about a ten minute walk from my hotel.  So, I now plan on walking to the subway each time I venture out of my room.  I am staying on the 7^th floor of an Express by Holiday Inn.  It’s alright.  The bed is comfy.  I don’t plan on being in my room much.

After dropping off my stuff, I decided to go to the Pudong area of Shanghai, which is the “westernized” area of Shanghai.  There are many skyscrapers, restaurants, parks, and millions upon millions of people.  A sea of people, really.  I visited the 2^nd and 3^rd tallest buildings in the world and took pictures of the 7^th tallest building.  The names of the buildings are Shanghai World Financial Center, Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Jin Mao Tower respectively.  I did quite a bit of walking to get to the Shanghai World Financial center and Jin Mao Tower because Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World Expo and the government is having the city refurbished.  I’ve never seen so much construction.  Roads were torn up and there were huge walls that I had to weave around in order to find my way to each destination.  I would have walked probably 2 miles less today had it not been for the construction.

The Pearl Tower had a glass floor for viewing, which was impressive and the Shanghai World Financial Center has the world’s highest viewing floor on the 100^th floor.  It was insane.  I stood on the 100^th floor for over an hour and a half waiting for it to get dark so I could take pictures of the city lights.  Most of them didn’t turn out because the windows made them blurry, but I did walk back to the Pearl Tower a second time to take pictures outdoors at night, then walked beyond the Pearl Tower to the Huangpu River and took pictures of an area called the Bund.

The Bund is an area with 14 buildings built to replicate different European styles.  Some of the buildings are quite old, as the French population in Shanghai was once quite high.  At night, the buildings are lit up and extremely beautiful from a distance.  Tomorrow or the following day, I plan on visiting the Bund close up and taking pictures of each building during the door and at night.

As far as food, I had not been adventurous yet.  I skipped eating until about 7pm and by that time, I was hungry because the last food that I had was at 9am and was that not-so-good rice and kimchi.  The only places that I could find near the Pearl Tower were Haggen Dazs, a really expensive burger place, Pizza Hut, and Subway.  I haven’t had subway since leaving the U.S., so I thought I’d try it out.  It was muy bueno.  I got a Subway melt with double meat, Doritos, and Sprite.  Oh man, I totally missed Subway (never thought I’d say that).

The first day was quite the experience.  It is the 60^th anniversary of communism in China, so there were videos of marching armies everywhere, apartment buildings were shooting off fireworks tonight, everything seems to be decorated with red, and I even saw 2-3 year old boys and girls waving miniature communist flags today.

There are so many people here and noticeably more men.  Also, their features are quite different than those of Koreans.  Their language is harsher too.  Less vowels and spoken quite loudly.

Twice, I saw parents helping their kids to urinate into storm drains.  One man was lifting holding his daughter so her behind was pointing at the drain.  I don’t know if this is a regular sight in China, but I did notice a few times the smell of dookie and/or vomit.  Reminded me of Korea, which nearly always smells of poo and spew.

I think because I am in the most westernized city in China, people were nicer to me.  I was quite surprised by how hospitable they were.  Multiple times, people tried to help me at the subway stations or offered to let me take a cab before them.  I also had a Chinese 20-something talk to me in English at the Shanghai World Financial Center.  She was very nice.  I should have talked to her more, but she was one of the employees there and was checking people’s bags before they entered the building.

I called it a night earlier than I expected to, but I was too exhausted to do anything else.  Today was full of walking and the lack of sleep hit me like a ton of bricks.  I ended up back in my hotel room at 8:30.  But, I was still able to get an 8-hour day in.  I took nearly 200 pictures, mostly of architecture and some of the people, subway, Maglev train, etc.  One downfall about being alone on a trip, it’s hard to get any pictures with you in them without doing the whole “hold your arm as far out as you possibly can” thing, which always results in awkward, poorly centered pictures.  Plus, my big noggin always blocks whatever is behind me in the picture.

China Itinerary

Tomorrow, I am flying to China just in time for their 60th Anniversary of Oppression, cough, I mean communism.  I cleaned my room, scrubbed down the entire bathroom including the shower, cleaned out he fish tank, cleaned my hamster’s cage, washed the stove burners, got down on my hands and knees and washed the floors by hand, dusted, and even moved out my bed to sweep and wash underneath it.

The weather for my trip is looking to turn out to be so-so.  There is no rain in the forecast for the time I will be in Shanghai.  It should be about 75 degrees and sunny.  However, right now, there is rain in the forecast for the days that I will be on a tour in Beijing to see the Great Wall, amongst many other things.  I hope the weather patterns change between now and Oct. 7-9th for my time in Beijing.

Right now, I am wearing basketball shorts as my underwear because I need 9 pairs of underwear for China and that is all the underwear that I own.  I washed all my clothes and by ALL, I mean ALL.  I washed the mats in my bathroom, my doormat, the dish rags, my towels, by bed sheets, etc.  Every time I wash my laundry and hang it up on the dry rack in my room, my room gets extremely humid so I have to run he air conditioner.  Otherwise, my laundry would take 3 days to dry and smells of weirdness.

I have been planning out my itinerary in China slowly but surely for the past month and I decided that trying to have an exact itinerary in Shanghai just isn’t going to happen because I have entirely too much free reign to decide what to do.

My itinerary is as follows:

Oct 3.

Fly out of Incheon airport at 8:55am on flight MU5052 to Shanghai.  I will be staying in the Express by Holiday Inn Putuo hotel.

Arrive in Shanghai at the PVG airport at 9:50am

Take either the #6 bus to Zhonshan Park subway stop, near my hotel OR take the Maglev train (fastest train in the world at 431 kmh) from the airport into Shanghai

Oct 3rd-6th, visit the following places in no particular order in Shanghai:

1) Shanghai World Financial Center (2nd tallest building in the world)

2) Oriental Pearl Tower (3rd tallest building in the world)

3) Jin Mao Tower (7th tallest building in the world)

4) Xin Tian Di (also known as the French Connection)- looks like Paris in Shanghai

5) Yu Yuan Garden- 5-acre garden in the city

6) Nanjing Lu- shopping/pedestrian area that comes alive at night (has been compared to Vegas)

7) Shanghai Museum- 120,000 ancient Chinese artifacts

The Bund- area near the Huangpu river with very old, victorian buildings and lit tunnel under the river

9) Huangpu river cruise

10) Jade Buddha Temple- 3 huge Buddha statues made out of jade

11) St Ignatius cathedral

12)Longhua Temple

Then, on Oct 7th leave Shanghai from Hongqiao Internation airport on flight MU5101 to Beijing at the PEK airport.  I will be staying in the Holiday Inn Express Temple of Heaven location.

Things I will see in Beijing:

On Oct. 7th, I have a free day.  I am going to meet up with my friend Dan and head to Beihai Park in the Old City near the Forbidden Temple and Tienamen Square.

Oct. 8th and 9th, Dan and I are taking a tour of Beijing.  We will see:

1) Forbidden City/Tienamen Square

2) Summer Palace

3) Temple of Heaven

4) The Great Wall

5) 13 Ming Emperors burial grounds (Chang Ling)

On Oct. 9th at 9:18pm, I will take an overnight train from Beijing West Train Station to Xi’An.  I will arrive on Oct. 10th at 8:19am in Xi’An and be picked up by a tour guide and taken to see the Terracotta Warriors and the Shaanxi Provincial History Museum.

After the tour of the Terracotta Warriors, I will be taken back to the train station and leave at 8:16pm and take another overnight train back to Beijing and arrive at 7:17am on Oct. 11th.

I will depart at 5:55pm from Beijing from the PEK airport on flight MU5087 to Seoul.  I will arrive at the Incheon International Airport in Seoul at 9pm.

From there, Dan and I will take a bus back to Beomgye subway station, which is two stations from our apartments.  From there, we will take a subway or taxi back to our apartments and the trip is over.

This trip will be great.  I have planned things as much as I can.  I have printed out maps and translations of directions in Chinese in case I get lost.  I have maps of the subway systems and exact locations of all the areas I wish to visit.  I am very excited and blessed.  Thank God for the things I am able to do!