We began our China travels in the well known city oh Shanghai...this was such a cool city! Our ship docked right in the middle of the city and overlooked two giant glass sphere shaped buildings that looked like the world and a tall needle looking building in the middle.
We hit the streets as soon as we could and eventually stumbled upon a street full of restaurants. This wasn't just any old quiet street of restaurants...all the workers were standing out side waving and yelling at us to come into their restaurant. It was like being in the mall when all the chinese restaurants want you to try their food.
After lunch we walked around a main shopping area in desparate search of a cheap market. Little did we know that they didn't really exist where we were so we went to plan B....following the random chinese people who would come up and sketchly show us pictures of fake watches and purses..."You like you like"!
We were in a big group and figured if something went wrong we (or atleast the big guys we were with) could take em down...they're little people anyway. The back allys turned out to be a HUGE success! One sketchy room after another full of Louis, Prada, Gucci, Fendi, ...you name it! They even had nike, uggs, Polo, and North Face! We ended up meeting some students who were studying abroad in shanghai and gave us the low down on the goods in the back allys...they said some of it was def. Real and some were just really good copies.
We ended up meeting up with the students studying abroad in shanghai at an all you can eat and drink sushi place later that night. If its any indication of how the night was...there were 20 college students singing the national anthem before we left. But of course the all u can drink place wasn't enough fun for us college students so we headed to a club called Muse2. The funny part behind this. Is that there was a bar in japan called Muse that we got lost trying to find and were disappointed when we did to find out that it wasn't some crazy club. Muse2 was a different story and had tons of crazy lights and loud music... We LOVED it!
The next day started our 6 day Semester at Sea sponsored trip to xi'an (pronounced shian) and Beijing and ending in Hong Kong to meet our ship. This trip was amazing! First we flew to Xi'an and got right off the plane to learn how to write some chinese caligraphy. Then we headed to our hotel for a quick change and off to our dumpling diner where we tried 18 different kinds of dumplings! The sad part is I only liked about 3 of them :(. The next day we went to go see the xi'an city wall, a mosque, and a an old bazaar. I quickly learned the art of bargaining when I tried to buy a northface jacket. The guy started at 60usd and I got him down to 40usd...I had given in and was going to pay that amount when I realized I only had 30usd with me. Thank goodness for the chinese new year! A girl with me looks at him and says "oh come on its the new year!" He said "ok happy new year!"... Great success!
The next part of our day was by far the best when we saw the Terracotta warriors! For those unfamiliar ...these warriors were discovered by a random chinese farmer in the 70's and now the government has taken over and made a museum out of them all. These warriors were built by artists hired by the first emperor of china to protect his tomb. He literally had an entire army (as in like 5000+ ) of these statues made! Most of the statues have been uncovered, but there are still more to be found!
After the warriors we went to visit an orphanage where we played with the kids, watched a show they performed for us, and left them presents. Next stop...Tang Dynasty Dinner show. This was a dinner and show mimicking how royalty durning the tang dynast would have eaten diner.
That night we wondered around the streets in search of a good bar, but none were to be found. Instead, a fireworks show by locals in the city streets of xi'an! Literally these people would light the most amazing fireworks in the middle of the street with tall buildings and powerlines all around and cars passing by! That would not fly in the US!
The next day we flew to Beijing and stayed there for 3nights. We saw Tiennemen Square, the forbidden city, the bird's nest in the olympic village, and how to make silk in one day. For those wondering, the bird's nest was transformed into a winter wonderland for kids to sled, ice skate, and watch shows. Another day we saw kung fu masters, my personal favorite: the great wall of china, and a chinese acrobatic show!
I have to say we cheated getting up to the great wall of china...we took the cable car up :). BUT we did get some pretty sweet pics from the cable car! We walked about a mile on the wall and then got to toboggan down!! it was this giant silver slide looking thing that twisted and turned all the way to the bottom and we had our own toboggans that we could control how fast or slow we went. Of course we all chose to speed down the whole way even though the guards would tell us to slow down! Oops!
That night was the chinese acrobatic show and it was incredible! Tons of chinese men doing flips and stackings 4 and 5 high of people! And then the girls would come out and do crazy things like make a 4 person high pyramid while doing handstands on each other!
Early the next morning (as in 3:45am early!) We left for Hong Kong to meet our ship. Our ship was docked right in the middle of the city and at a mall! And not just any mall...it was the biggest mall in hong kong with hundreds of stores! And of course they weren't just any stores...they were all designer names....Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Faragamo, Polo...pretty much every single expensive brand that exists in the world!
That night we went out to the coolest bar district ever! It was called Lan Kwai Fung (I think that's the name, if not its pretty close). It was this long street solely lined with bars and clubs! Most def. A sight to see!
Well that's all I got for China! Check back for my travels around Vietnam in the next few days!
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