Shanghai Adventures

So right now in Hangzhou nobody can get facebook, blogger or youtube. Nobody at all. Before all those with macs could use Hot Spot Shield, a ridiculously reliable proxy, until last Sunday afternoon. So sorry for the delay and sorry to those of you who I have not been able to send facebook messages to. For now either skype (elise.w.cohen) or e-mail me (ecohen@middlebury.edu) if you want to reach me - seeing as I can't even read your comments. Aah!

But anyway, here I am, a week later, reminiscing and blogging about my solo trip to Shanghai. I would say my trip last weekend was probably one of the events I am most proud of, in my entire life. There were quite a few times when I thought it would just be easier to head back to Hangzhou, but I didn't, and that is, as you all well know, a big step for me.

This trip all started because our Residential Director "set up" last weekend to be "Independent Travel" weekend. The point, as she put it, was to be able to use our language to meet all kinds of people that we otherwise might not meet if we were with our roommates or other friends. I think I was one of the few people who actually wound up independently going. I know a lot of other people went in small groups to different places around Hangzhou, but I am actually REALLY happy I went by myself.

It started out kind of stressfully, however. I was told by our academic director's assistant that the Hangzhou Rail Station wouldn't be that busy - so it wouldn't be a problem to get a train ticket to Shanghai. I keep forgetting that I am in a city of many, many, people, so even though it wasn't very crowded, I still found myself waiting over 45 minutes to get to the ticket line to buy my ticket. The first two trains that I wanted to get on were full, so I just agreed to whatever ticket that she gave me, as I was desperate to have proof that this trip would actually happen. As I paid the price of my ticket, I realized it was 9 kuai more than what I had been told I would have to pay. For a few moments I got excited, thinking that I had bought a ticket for a faster train. Not quite. Turns out I wound up spending 9 kuai more to spend another 30 minutes on the train to a railway station that wasn't what I had originally wanted.

At this point I just wanted to get to Shanghai, especially because several times I considered just heading back to Hangzhou and saving myself the trouble. This proved useless, however, as I reminded myself I had already bought my hotel ticket. I was in it for the "long haul!" Upon finally arriving in Shanghai and finally figuring out how to take the subway to People's Square (since the line for the taxi was RIDICULOUS) I realized that the train station I had accidentally gone to was actually a lot closer than the Shanghai North station would have been. Good to know! After 20ish minutes of walking and asking clueless police officers who had never heard of my hotel - I finally found it! Oh Charms Hotel, how nice it was to see you! From what the internet told me - this was the cheapest hotel within walking distance to People's Square, Nanjing Road, and other very touristy areas. So I was happy. My room was very comfortable, and even better IT HAD ENGLISH TV!! Sure it was Hong Kong CNN and Bloomberg Television, but it was English! I even watched an hour or so of World Business Today, as I was so entranced by my ability to understand the language on TV. It was very relaxing.

This was the first time I had stayed in a hotel by myself, and I have to admit it was more than a little weird. I found I associate hotels with Cohen (and a Carney) family vacations. I laughed to myself as I thought of how much Fred would enjoy getting to know all the waiters, and missed sitting down for a big breakfast. I also ate by myself at dinner, and kept thinking how nice it would be to have Marsh around to escape upstairs to watch TV (even though Marsh, you would have been bored to tears by the TV they showed). So yeah, the first night made me a little homesick. But I figured that was the point of this trip. It was about trying to overcome challenges that you wouldn't normally choose to take on otherwise. Which is kind of what this trip turned into. I really just let myself do whatever I felt like I wanted to do. I had had a really difficult week - so I saw Shanghai as my spa. And it really did turn out to be so.

Before I started exploring Shanghai, however, I wanted to make sure I had a train ticket back. So in my business savvy mood (must have been the business atmosphere of the hotel), I decided I didn't want to waste another 30 minutes and 9 kuai to get back, so I decided to go to Shanghai North Station to buy my train ticket. I also decided I would take a taxi, so that I could better see Shanghai. Mistake, mistake, mistake. The taxi ride did not offer me pretty views of Shanghai, but instead charged me over 40 kuai to see what Shanghai's freeways were like. I spent 40 kuai + to save 9 kuai. I also hadn't eaten anything so I was not exactly in the mood. After spending so long waiting in 2 different lines (since the ticket agents have a really thick accent, don't care that you don't know what they're saying, and aren't willing to help you) I finally bought myself a 5 o'clock ticket and subwayed off back to People's Square.

Nanjing Road, from what I've heard, is a very large touristy shopping area. It was REALLY hot on Saturday and already full of people at 10 am, so I decided to do some Elise pampering instead, and headed on over to the "cinema" to buy myself movie tickets. Coming up this week is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (and I JUST found out my roommate is a member of the Communist party!! I want to know more about it and will definitely let you guys know what I come up with) so the government had sponsored a movie "Founding of a Republic" celebrating this event. It was only opening up in China, and it was a HUGE deal. Basically it follows Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao's power struggle and features pretty much every famous Chinese actor there was. The problem was, however, that I didn't know who half the actors were, or get half of the jokes the movie presented. I made the decision, though, to laugh whenever everyone else did, as I didn't want to appear even more out of place than I already did. Although I wish I had had more time to analyze what part of the movie might have differed from history, etc. it was a BEAUTIFULLY shot movie. On the plus side, it also had English subtitles, which made my life about eight times better. It was also interesting, though, in how the Americans were portrayed. There wasn't much, but at one point a female Chinese businesswoman came to China to talk to Truman. They kept a scene in where one of the American soldiers/guards goes "Damn, she's hot." Is this really how Americans are viewed in Chinese society? I found it very interesting that they kept it in.

The rest of the trip was just spent mostly walking around a mall, absorbing the more Western part of Shanghai. And truthfully, I really needed it. I miss home and all you guys a lot, and hanging around a mall, listening to Western music (particularly Akon) in stores, brought me a little closer to home, in some weird way or another. I also spent a few minutes in the (free!) Shanghai Museum - where I got to see some original calligraphy as well as old school Chinese currency - which was very interesting. Let's just say I'm glad I don't have to carry around the gigantic coins they used to have in my purse anymore.

So to sum up: Shanghai was great, and very necessary. I'm growing up! I really miss you all and hope everyone's year/semester is starting off well. More posts (thanks to Mom/Dad) will be posted soon!

Love and miss you all.