Hangzhou and Shanghai, China

So I sadly don’t have internet here in Shanghai (unless I want to pay for it… yea, I don’t!) so sadly the last two posts I wrote haven’t been posted yet either… I have a feeling I’ll hear about this from some family member (probably Jennifer) so I’m sorry about the delay!

So following my last post… the next morning, after our crazy fun first night in Hangzhou, a bunch of us were not too excited about this boat ride on West Lake we were going on. It was nice and relaxing I’m sure, but I got a little motion sickness and the lack of air movement made me feel pretty gross and sweaty from all the humidity, but that was something I was getting used to by that point! The boat took us to a park like area with a pond that was pretty much orange from all the coy fish in it! From there we went to another park, known as the Yellow Dragon Cave, but the cave part wasn’t really as cool as the rest of the park. We wandered around there which was definitely a bit trying for my foot, so I tried to take it easy and rest. We ended the day by visiting the #1 tea plantation in all of China which was definitely the highlight of my day because their top quality green tea sobered me up and helped relieve some pain associated with my leg (which at this point I had only told Jennifer about because I didn’t want the parent’s to worry about a bad bruise). But before we could get back to the hotel, the tour guide suggested that we see a show that was supposed to be the best in the city. What he meant by show we weren’t quite sure, but at dinner the group leaders got everyone to agree to atleast check it out. We had seats in the upper balcony kind of in the back (but what could we expect for deciding to go so late!) and when the show started, I don’t think there was a single person who wasn’t on the edge of their seat for the entire thing. It was definitely more of an acrobatic/kung fu/crazy stunts show than anything else! There were so many dangerous looking stunts pulled (half of them done by children) that I swear they wouldn’t be legal in the U.S., but I guess atleast no one got injured! The show definitely made the long day worth it, so some people continued the day by heading out while I once again headed in to give my foot a rest.

The next day, Wednesday the 23^rd, I woke up with another fabulous 7am wake up call, packed up and got on the bus heading to our final destination- Shanghai! On the way we visited another water town called Xitang. I think the main purpose of going there was because Mission Impossible 3 had a few scenes filmed there, but the town itself was no where near as cool as Wuzhen… and on top of that it had the most polluted water I had ever seen and it smelled worse than anything I can describe with words… yea, it really was that bad! It was still cool walking through it, but it was another humid day so most of us just wanted to get back on the bus and head to the big city. It took us a few hours, but we eventually made it to Shanghai where our first stop was a pearl shop where we learned about how pearls were made in China. We then checked into our hotel, got a nice shower/nap in, and met in the lobby to take a cruise around downtown Shanghai. The view was amazing- I got a couple nice pictures but it was so dark out that even with all the bright lights of Shanghai most pictures didn’t turn out. While on the boat I also saw the English district where Grandpa Z told us he was stationed at the end of WWII! I looked and looked for the Royal Pub but I had no luck and just decided to try again later. That night everyone was pretty exhausted and most just stayed in and either hit up the hotel’s bar or watched TV until falling asleep.

So today, I had an actually GOOD breakfast in the hotel, and headed out for our first entirely free day of the trip! I walked with Professor Bintong and about 8-10 guys of the group to an area of Shanghai known as Old Town where we shopped a lot and enjoyed my FIRST STARBUCKS of the trip! I had heard there were many American restaurants in Shanghai but seeing a Starbucks was definitely like finding a gold mine… Yea so after that amazing experience, we shopped a little more and then I headed in early not only because it was the most humid day ever, but my foot was swollen again..! Yea, if we didn’t have to walk so much I know it wouldn’t have taken so long to heal, but none the less I went back to the hotel and probably had the best shower of my entire trip thus far. After resting some I joined a bunch of people ordering dinner from Papa Johns (yea, as in the amazingly good pizza I live off of in Pullman… in China!) and then got ready to hit the town. Blake, a guy in our group, knew of this famous club called Cloud 9 but we didn’t know if we’d be able to get in with the clothes we had available, so we went to a different popular club known as Babyface which was PACKED but still a lot of fun. I headed in early compared to the rest of the group which turned out to be a smart idea because there was some drama, so all in all it was a great first day in Shanghai. The city is so big that there’s no way I can experience is all in one day, but hopefully my foot feels better and I’ll do my best to see more tomorrow-