Rebecca: Shanghai Days Again

Another super full day in Shanghai! Our days are actually all free - we don't have group activities, we all just run around Shanghai doing our own thing. Luckily we have a good guide in Jen's friend! We started early today, at 8:30 to go down to the Bund (the touristy place where our first adventure took place). We went down to the river to retake a picture one of our group members had taken when he was a little kid in China, so we had to try and find the exact location. A lot has changed in Shanghai in the last ten years, it seems, though we found the place in the end! We ate brunch at a restaurant there and then went back to the hostel (this is sort of boring, I realize, but I'm too tired to do the usual big-words-and-fancy-phrasing thing). 

Jen, Steven (another of our group members) and I met up with Jen's friend Zach again and jumped on a bus for an hour (somehow you can drive for an hour and not leave Shanghai) to go to a little water town district called Zhu Jia Jiao, which is super fun to say. :) A water town is like mini-Venice: traditional buildings and with canals instead of streets. We took a boat tour, then strolled around on foot. The best adventure we had was going to a little restaurant on the waterfront, which was definitely not tourist-oriented. We asked for a menu, and quickly realized it was all Chinese. We asked for an English menu, which we got, but it was really outdated (like, half the items were no longer available) and really, really Engrishy. The best item on it was probably the "meat is embeded" :D, though we didn't order it. We managed to order a couple dishes (though at one point we were told "there is no rice". This turned out to be false, but it was still a little surprising. I mean, we're in China. How is there no rice?), and they tasted pretty good. Lotus root, Chinese eggplant and amaranth (maybe? I'm still not really sure what I ate today) were pretty good, and of course fried rice is delicious. 

See, at first when we touched down in China, I was pretty food-paranoid. I thought "okay, I'll be really safe and only eat at nicer restaurants and Western places so I don't get sick". It took about one day for that all to go out the window. Now I'm eating random street food and any number of unidentifiable things we find. If I get sick, well... I got vaccines before I left, and I've got medicine. As much as I hate the saying, you only live once! 

(Calm down, Mom. I haven't totally thrown my common sense out the window. I brush my teeth with bottled water and I carry hand sanitizer everywhere. I don't want to die.)

So basically we did way more stuff in these last two days than I thought I'd ever do in a year, and it's been super super super. I'm having the time of my life. Tomorrow we leave Shanghai to go to the university in Hangzhou, so we'll see how the trip goes from there. I'm really excited to meet the students and see the campus!

Oh, one more fun thing that happened! Steven and I were waiting for Jen and Zach in the subway, and a random dude came up to us and started speaking in Mandarin. Steven speaks Mandarin, so he tried to translate it for me later, but it was pretty confusing. The guy wanted our help with something because his parents died or something? He started off by saying something like "I'm not lying", so he was probably pretty trustworthy, right? Steven told him no, we couldn't help him, and then the guy turns to me as if I've understood the whole thing! He pretty much stared at me until I said "I don't know" (which is about the extent of my Mandarin), and then he left. It was pretty weird. Good times in the Shanghai subway!

-Rebecca

Rebecca: Shanghai Days

First full day in Shanghai! It probably goes down as one of the best days of my life. We met up with a friend of Jen's studying in Shanghai for the year, which was really cool. He showed us around, so we got to see a lot of stuff. I honestly don't even know where to start. We went by about six million different street stalls, selling everything from clothes to knickknacks to food. And tons of knockoff designer stuff, which is sold at inflated prices. It's expected that you barter with the seller, but it's a little scary when you don't really know how. I thought I did a good job, but maybe I still got ripped off? If you turn them down after a bit of haggling and leave the store, they will chase after you with a better price, which was only mildly terrifying. 

We ate lunch at a place called - wait for it - More Than Toilet. It's a toilet-themed restaurant in a district called Tianzifang, and the food is really good! I ate something called honey toast, which is like a big cube of sweet bread, and it comes with toppings like ice cream, fruit or chocolate. Then we wandered around the city (for a looooong time, my feet are killing me), going to parks and to a little museum, and eventually found ourselves away from the touristy parts of Shanghai and into the real city. The streets there were more like narrow alleys, with people frying food and selling it off little carts. I got over my food fears pretty quick and ate some street food, which was great! I love bao zi, which is like a steamed bun with different fillings. I like sesame paste filling, because it tastes a little bit like peanut butter. 

I also got a bottle of iced tea with Avril Lavigne on it. Little weird - apparently she's big in China. So basically a very full day with lots of adventure! 

Rebecca: First Impressions

Hello patient readers! Sorry for not updating in the first few days; apparently blogspot is blocked by the Great Firewall of China (that's what it's called, really!), so we've been forced to use some sketchy workarounds. Don't ask. That means I could technically access facebook, but I want to use our workaround as little as possible (it's, well, less-than-legal) so I probably won't. I've been writing up about our days, so I'll just start posting those and you can wade through them at your leisure (I'm starting to realize I make these things way too long).

Day 1: First Impressions
We've arrived in China, all safe and with our luggage intact! My first impressions of China - just looking out the window of the plane - were "it's so green" and "there is no sky". We're in Shanghai right now, and for being such an urban sprawl there's a lot of greenery. It's a different kind of green from Canada, though. It's a lush, waxy sort of green, which makes sense, I guess. China is very humid and more tropical-ish than Canada. As for the sky, it's definitely there, it just looks... off, to me. The sun was shining brightly when we landed, but the sky was a sort of grey-white colour. All the smog makes it like that, I guess. It just looked so strange because I'm used to these big, blue prairie skies that stretch on forever. Here, the sky is kind of low and... thick, I guess.

Basically, China is wildly different from anywhere I've ever been, and Shanghai is the sort of city I've only ever seen in movies. There are towering hotels and office buildings next to run-down shacks, villas next to abandoned warehouses, and everything lights up at night. The people are like that too - people in tailored suits next to people literally begging on the streets. It was incredible and terrifying and overwhelming all at once, especially for a small-town girl. 

That's not to say I'm not enjoying it, though. Jen and I had our first adventure already! Our group went out to explore the town, and as it turned out there was some sort of holiday going on today. Which means that a lot of people were in Shanghai with the same idea as us. Let me clarify that: by "a lot of people" I mean "a LOT of people". Like, A LOT. The most people I've ever seen in one place before was at a Chicago White Sox game, and I was pretty impressed by that. This was entirely different. It was like a White Sox game at every intersection. It was less of a "wow, I'm surprised there are this many people in this city" and more of a "wow, I'm surprised there are this many people in the WORLD." There are also apparently no traffic rules. People, cars, bikes and mopeds just go wherever they want, whenever they want, honking and shouting all the way. Sidewalks are irrelevant; walking in the middle of the street is apparently normal. So all of this culminated in both Jen and me being separated from our group in this mass of people - and we didn't even get separated together. Both of us had independent moments of "I do not recognize anyone on this street anymore", and I nearly got run over by a moped. Luckily, we managed to find each other and make our way back to the hostel by ourselves.

(Why do I post these things? My mother is going to flip. I promise I'm fine, Mom! I knew where I was the whole time, I just didn't know where anyone else was.)

Also, I haven't slept in something like 24 hours (planes are not conducive to sleeping), so I'm going to crash now (er, no pun intended? Plane... crash... get it? No? Okay...).

tl;dr: We're alive and in Shanghai!

-Rebecca

Jen: The first day and I nearly die...

Not trying to scare anyone and do not be alarmed I am back at my hostel safe and sound but OH MY GOODNESS. The amount of people I saw tonight. We got into China on a festival or holiday or something so EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE was at The Bund. It was kinda scary. At one point I did get seperated from the group and couldn't even find Rebecca. After 5 seconds of panic I saw Rebecca and we bought water and went homeeeee.
The plane ride was reeeeeeally long and they were bent on feeding us every 4 hours I was so full. I've officially been up for 24 hours+ so I'll end this here and go to beeeeeeed.

Rebecca: I am a responsible administrator of this blog and I post regularly! (This is a lie.)

Right now it looks like Jen is the only one posting on this thing... I swear I'll post more when we're actually IN China! I could tell you the horror stories about getting my Chinese visa (you try applying online when the computer refuses to recognize your legal name. What is it with bureaucrats and losing it every time they see an umlaut?), or my abysmal failings in learning Mandarin (in my defense I was studying Ancient Greek for school and two languages at once is hard work), or how much I've packed (a clue: it starts with no- and ends in -thing), but that wouldn't be much fun so I won't.

I was going to post the Official Backstory of Jen and Rebecca (tentatively titled How I Met My Housemate), but it mostly involves both of us looking like awkward first-years, exchanging numbers at the Linguistics orientation and not sitting next to each other in class because I am socially inept, so I won't do that either. (We were actually so awkward though. Jen wore her lanyard around her neck like only a first-year would and everything. And I carried this massive Latin textbook everywhere like it was my only friend.) (It was not my only friend.)

What I AM going to do, though, is... actually I'm probably not going to do a whole lot of anything. It's 1:40am and I'm only writing this because I'm going to start telling people about this blog and I thought maybe I should actually post something both clever and welcoming.

Er... Welcome! What do you call a snobby, elitist criminal walking down the stairs? A condescending con descending!

There. I hope you feel both suitably welcomed and stunned by my wit. You'll be hearing from me soon - because I maybe might possibly actually be leaving for CHINA on Wednesday and I'm dying of excitement!!

-Rebecca

Jen: Getting on a Plane in 4 days

Slowly coming to the terms that I'll be leaving the country soon. There's just a few things that need to be done. I just got back from an overnight meeting in another city for a trip to Japan that immediately follows the China trip. HELLO JETLAG CITY. It's a 13 hour flight so that's what? 13 albums or 3 books or 100s of bad puns that Rebecca is gonna have to live thru. MUAHAHAHA. My bag is actually mostly packed! Most of the daily stuff I'll get in China!

I bought a book today that has pictures of Canada from Newfoundland to B.C. It should be pretty helpful to tell the students about Canada! I'm still pretty nervous about the language barrier but I've had a few chances to practice my Mandarin lately!

In 4 days I'll be on a plane and on a new adventure! Can it just be next week? Ahhh!

Jen: China Visa Madness

Hello world!

My visa has finally been sent in (after much stress). Oh my goodness. I was freaking out because my passport does not have my middle name but I wrote it on my application. Then I wrote my SIN number where my health card was suppose to go. So, fingers crossed I'll get it back soon along with a gauge into my credit card. Yayyyy.

In less than a month I'll be in China! I promise these posts will be much more frequent (hopefully daily) when I get there! I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to spend 14 hours on a plane. Movies probably. I've been watching a lot of those lately:

• Farewell My Concubine
• Raise the Red Lantern
• House of the Flying Daggers
• Painted Skin 1 & 2

I'm really impressed with them so far! Now to get Rebecca addicted to them too (hehehe). My next order of business is to make a list of what I want to pack... Any suggestions to those who have been? Guess we'll find out!

Jen Collins