I left from Seoul to Shanghai a few days before I was scheduled to meet with the girls and the tour group. I stayed at a hostel right downtown near People's Square, about ten minutes from the Bund (Shanghai riverfront). The hostel was nice, but just like a lot of China, there was a lack of heating. It was at about freezing outside and the hostel was about five degrees warmer.
At the hostel I met Patty and John, two fellow travelers. Patty is from Ireland and came to Asia to meet her brother, who is working in Hong Kong. She is on her way from Hong Kong to Beijing where she will fly back to Dublin. John is a retired firefighter from France. He loves to travel, but his wife doesn't. Their solution is that John travels every winter for about a month on his own. He also doesn't speak English so I'm not sure how he can venture on his own, but he does just fine. We decided one day to go downtown across the river to see the JinMao tower. The JinMao tower is the second tallest tower in Shanghai and one of the tallest in Asia. We went to the top and saw the city view (of course the view wasn't too great because of the heavy smog that hangs over the city). It was incredible to see so many skyscrapers, Shanghai is very modern.
I also had a day to wander the Bund and to see the large shopping street, Nanjing St. Shanghai wasn't what I expected. I didn't expect it to be so similar to the larger US cities like New York or Chicago. I suppose it appeared that way because it has a lot of French/Western influence. A lot of foreign companies also work here in Shanghai, so that could also be a reason for its Western appearance. It was hard for me to find Chinese brands in Shanghai, there were so many American brands I thought I was back in West county or something. Shanghai is definitely the China of tomorrow. As China grows economically, I think we will see many of the other cities transition to appear more like Shanghai.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Hello from Thailand!
I am blogging from my hostel in Bangkok Thailand! I left this morning from Seoul in below freezing weather to upper eighties here in Bangkok, quite a change! I arrived at 4:30 and took the Skytrain (Bangkok's public metro) to my hostel. The hostel is very modern with free internet (I can blog!). It is also right downtown, which makes it a great homebase as I tour the city.
After putting my stuff on my bunk I went with Natalia, one of my roomates, to an Indian restaurant a few minutes from our hostel. Natalia is from Russia and has been traveling all over Southeast Asia for the last four months. She was a travel agent in Moscow, but is on leave for a while as she travels. She is taking this trip alone, but as she says "I am taking this trip with everyone I meet." We walked around our hostel and came across the Indian neighborhood, we saw one of the Hindu temples as they were conducting evening prayer. We decided to eat at one of the Indian restaurants, little did we know what we were getting into. The place was not only an Indian restaurant, it was an Indian vegetarian restaurant with a giant Egyptian mural, and really annoying American soft rock music playing. I can definately say that I have never seen this combination in a restaurant nor will I likely see it again. It was nice though to hear about Natalia's travels and get some tips about visiting Thailand (she has been here for about three weeks).
Tomorrow, I am hoping to visit the weekend market, which is a giant open air market filled with all things Thai. I will have to see how tired I am considering the crazy week I had. I am also hoping to continue to blog about China and the week in Korea with the girls.
After putting my stuff on my bunk I went with Natalia, one of my roomates, to an Indian restaurant a few minutes from our hostel. Natalia is from Russia and has been traveling all over Southeast Asia for the last four months. She was a travel agent in Moscow, but is on leave for a while as she travels. She is taking this trip alone, but as she says "I am taking this trip with everyone I meet." We walked around our hostel and came across the Indian neighborhood, we saw one of the Hindu temples as they were conducting evening prayer. We decided to eat at one of the Indian restaurants, little did we know what we were getting into. The place was not only an Indian restaurant, it was an Indian vegetarian restaurant with a giant Egyptian mural, and really annoying American soft rock music playing. I can definately say that I have never seen this combination in a restaurant nor will I likely see it again. It was nice though to hear about Natalia's travels and get some tips about visiting Thailand (she has been here for about three weeks).
Tomorrow, I am hoping to visit the weekend market, which is a giant open air market filled with all things Thai. I will have to see how tired I am considering the crazy week I had. I am also hoping to continue to blog about China and the week in Korea with the girls.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Back from China
Hello all! We are back from China. We had a great time touring an amazing country filled with so much history, culture, and personality. We also got to visit my friend Xiao Chen for a time in Beijing. I will try to post our China adventures in the next few days while we are in Seoul. We just got back a few hours ago from our adventure to the southern part of Korea (Gyeonju) with the Byeon family. I will post about that later as well. Oh, I also have some news: I am going to take one more trip to Thailand before school starts. I am leaving on Saturday and will spend two weeks in the warm weather before coming back to start school.
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