Shanghai’d
July 2011 — After two months of living in Shanghai, I almost consider it home. While my dad is working at Shanghai Jiaotong University, I spend my days wandering the neighborhoods of Shanghai, learning to understand and appreciate this city of 20 million.
I can finally navigate the labyrinthine subway system with a semi-confident strut and smile, but it’s time to return to the U.S. S’all good though. I know (or at least, I hope very much) I’ll be back in a few years.
March 2014 — I am three years older, my hair is about a foot shorter, and my Chinese vocabulary is around 1500 words greater. I now utter phrases such as a polite “where is the washroom?” instead of a rude and far too direct “where is the toilet?” as well as a more advanced “this is far too expensive, I don’t have enough money” instead of a barked “too expensive!”
I’m spending the weekend back in Shanghai. Four of us (three from Michigan, one from Vancouver) take a train on over to Shanghai for the weekend. As the most knowledgeable amongst the group in the ways-of-the-Shanghai, I’m the de facto tour guide. I’m doing just fine remembering areas to visit, but I can’t for the life of me remember any specific destinations.
We spend the first day making the most of the subway system. We start on Nanjing Road, a major pedestrian street in the downtown area. The Bund, the bend in the river that houses the classic Shanghai skyline, is right at the end of the road. We arrive and snap a concerning number of selfies.
We next head to the French Concession. Although technically no longer a concession, it still remains an area in Shanghai with a heavily Western influence. It’s known for its quirky shops, restaurants, and bakeries. Trees and high walls line the streets, and it is gloriously quiet. We don’t do much except wander. Ah, I’d almost forgotten. We model a bit as well. As we are making our way to the metro, we are approached by a few men and women in ASOS shirts. They inform us that if we “model” for them, they’ll give us a small gift. Monica drags us all into it. It was secretly a lot of fun.
After our short stint as models, we again hop on the metro and arrive in Tianzifang. Tianzifang is a bit difficult to explain. It’s a maze of narrow streets and alleys housing dozens of art studios, craft shops, and boutiques. It also contains a number of restaurants. While the shops and restaurants are often more international than Chinese, they live within authentic Shanghai architecture. Tianzifang has only been a tourist destination for the past decade or so, and a number of people still live above the shops. After getting lost amongst the shops, we settle down to a meal of sandwiches, drinks on the house, and cake (CAKE!). Eaten with a fork and knife. T’is quite a strange sensation.
Though we are all wiped out, the night is clear, and the Shanghai skyline at night is stunning, so we once again make our way to the Bund. It’s worth it.
Then, we sleep.
Day two is slightly less ambitious. We only have two items on the agenda — the Shanghai Museum and a food street. I love museums, I always have, but the problem with Chinese museums is that, well, everything is in Chinese. If there happen to be English translations, they are often funny but unintelligible. The Shanghai Museum is an exception. It has galleries of pottery, jade, coins, calligraphy, furniture and more, all with explanations translated into correct and informative English.
But of course, the museum makes us alotta hungry. On Yunnan Road, the food street, we eat Schnitzel. It probably isn’t schnitzel, but basically, it’s schnitzel. We also gorge ourselves on fried dumplings stuffed with soup, meat, and shrimp. Oh, and glutinous rice milk tea. Afterwards, we begin the slowwwww process home. It goes something like subway → walk → subway → wait → standing-room-only train → subway → walk → bus → walk. But we make it! And we laugh about our wonderful and wonderfully exhausting weekend.
