Day 4: Qi Bao Zheng and Hangzhou

No trip to China is complete without experiencing the crushing crowds of an outdoor market and eating street food. Today we went to Qi Bao Zheng, one of the few remaining “Old Shanghai” sections of town, and perused the offerings of the local merchants. The shops were squeezed into a tiny alleyway, and a sea of shoppers pushed and shoved their way past each other, trying to get to their respective destinations. We ambled along, letting ourselves be propelled by the masses, stopping to sample bits of food offered by the hawkers. We had lamb skewers, red bean sticky rice, sugar cane juice, Korean mochee, and takoyaki (octopus). My mother bought a pair of fur lined shoes for the jaw droppingly low price of 19 RMB ($3 USD). I picked up a beautiful qipao. There was lovely scenery to take in, too: a lazily flowing river, graceful bridges, and pretty little boats.

After we stuffed ourselves at Qi Bao Zheng, we got onto one of the new high speed trains for an hour and a half ride to Hangzhou. The train is a sleek piece of work, and I’m reminded once again how far behind Europe and Asia the United States has fallen in terms of its railway technology. The train glided over the tracks at over 200 miles per hour, quiet as a whisper and smooth as silk. It was way better than the Acela J (Side note: now that I’m back in the States, I’ve now been informed that the high speed rail is a subject of controversy because its lack of riders has so far made it a losing enterprise for the Chinese government, and also because it doesn’t have a very good safety record. But my experience on it was a positive one.)

It was nearly nightfall by the time we got to Hangzhou. I had to do a bit of research to fully understand the significance of this town. I’ve seen it featured in lots of Chinese TV dramas, and I had a fair idea of what it was—there’s a lake, the West Lake (Xi Hu), where the hero and heroine always go to have their romantic interludes. There’s always a lot of fog and lily pads and chirping birds. It turns out there’s a reason why Hangzhou has such a storied reputation. For a thousand years, kings, artists, pilgrims, and nameless plain folk have descended on the shores of beautiful West Lake to admire its stunning beauty. It’s unofficially known as “heaven on earth.” It’s where emperors go to fall in love and poets retire to write their last verses. During the day, a gentle lake breeze whispers through the swaying willows, and during the night, moonbeams dance over the placid water. Even though the modern day version of Xi Hu is a booming tourist attraction, with stores and restaurants crowding out some of its natural beauty, it was still incredible to stand on its shores and think about all the illustrious stories of love, intrigue, and betrayal that have taken place there since the Southern Song Dynasty.

Dinner was an eye-opening experience. Instead of a menu, we were invited to head to a room where fish were still swimming and vegetables were still growing in pits to pick out what we wanted to have for dinner. I’d heard of such places, but never got to experience it for myself. Like all things I’ve eaten in China, the food was out-of-the-world delicious, but as a bonus, was also very healthy!

A view of the canal running through Qi Bao Zheng. Modern Shanghai buildings are in the backdrop.

Couldn't get enough of the gorgeous buildings. 

Pan enjoys some takoyaki :-)

Yum, street food! Cooking up something delicious. Unfortunately, I forget what, LOL. 

Gives you an idea of how narrow the street is and how many people were there.

Stuffed lotus root.

Enjoying the high speed rail on the way to Hang Zhou.

Chicken!

Seafood?

Chinese people really like to study what they eat.

Chinese mitten crab ( 大閘蟹  ), a Shanghai delicacy, on the left, and winter melon in the center. 

Day 3: Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang

I'm actually back in the States now and more or less recovered from the most wretched bout of jet lag. The censorship gods foiled my blogging attempts while I was in China, so now I'll start back-posting....

From the day before (12/15 aka Day 2): Meeting with our good friend from Cleveland, Ming. He used to tutor me in math and probably deserves a lion's share of the credit for getting me into Princeton :) It was great catching up with him and his wife, Liying, and their daughter, Melissa, whom I remember only as a little newborn.

Suzhou was gorgeous. It’s 2,500 years old and full of pagodas, gardens, bridges, and canals. We visited the drolly named Humble Administrator’s Garden, so christened because the public servant who owned the place decided he needed to build himself an extravagant estate in order to “humbly commune with nature.” See pictures below.

Our next destination was Zhou Zhuang. Here was where I saw two very different realities in China collide in what turned out to be quite a sobering experience. Zhou Zhuang is another ancient locale, a village built around canals, not unlike Venice. There are beautiful bridges framed by weeping willows and quaint little shops crowded along the shore. But it’s the middle of winter in the Jiang Nan area… there were biting winds that pierced through our jackets, and few tourists were out. The place was like a ghost town, but the shopkeepers who depend on the rich city dwellers and foreign visitors to make a living were clearly struggling. Our party of five paid a thinly clad older gentleman (maybe my father’s age) a mere $7 US to pull us in a rickshaw. He was wheezing during the entire trip, but was so pleased to have our business. People begged us to come into their shops… we didn’t, because the bitter cold made us want to leave as soon as we got there. We took some photos and retreated back into the comfort of our car to go back to our warm hotel room.

Between being constantly chauffeured around the city by our driver, lazing around the glass-enclosed pool at the hotel, and strolling down eight-lane avenues in Shanghai, I didn’t get any sense of the exotic. It’s not that much different from New York. I kept wondering when I’ll see the “real” China, until I realized that this is China--a study in contrasts. Compare the stunning opulence of Shanghai and the painful poverty of Qing Pu, where we drove a mere 30 miles outside the city to visit Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang. You hear all about China’s meteoric rise everywhere: on TV, on the radio, in the news, but I had to see it to really believe it. The cities in China teem with luxury, propped up by inexpensive labor and a burgeoning economy, but there’s a dark underbelly comprsied of those left behind, in city ghettoes and tattered hovels in the country side. It reminds me of a talk given by Jeff Shuck I heard once at the latest NTEN conference, in which he mentioned that in order to be in the top 20% of the world income-wise, one needs only to earn a mere $20,000 US a year (May not be the exact numbers--they've gotten fuzzy in my head and I can't find the original slides, though googling confirms the ballpark figure. He probably got the numbers from World Bank economist Banko Milanovic). I know that some people in China earn only about $300 (1800 RMB) a month. It certainly gives me pause when I thoughtlessly throw away 20 or 30 RMB on some cheap souvenir. What translates to only $5 US is worth a lot to some in China!

Day 2 breakfast! The Indigo gets full points from me for breakfast selection. This was the "Shanghai option."

Another Indigo breakfast option: the "Western" style breakfast.

Standing in front of the one the many beautiful gardens in Suzhou.

Gorgeous furniture inside a gazebo in the Humble Administrator's Garden.

Delicious bowl of noodles from a local noodle shop in Suzhou for 10 RMB!

Our rickshaw driver. I remain somewhere between fascinated and appalled?

My drink. The Revolutionary Frappe. It was not very good, LOL.

One of the dishes from dinner. We asked our driver to take us to a local Shanghai joint (non-touristy, please). This Shanghai style sweet and sour fish was delicious! 

Roasted pig feet we bought from Zhou Zhuang (admittedly out of pity for the shopkeepers). It's a famous Zhou Zhuang recipe and was delectable.

Day 2: Oriental Pearl Tower and Chenghuang Temple

First off, a picture for Helen--the mini bar at the Indigo had waaaay  more than tea, I just thought the tea aspect was more unusual so I took of picture of that instead :)

Day 2 was spent in Shanghai, soaking up food, culture, and atmosphere. Our hotel is located on “The Bund,” a bizarre word which means the outer shore, or the riverfront. The etymology of this word is quite interesting, as explained by Wikipedia: It’s from the Hindi-Urdu word, “band,” which means embankment or levee. We had a good bird’s eye view of everything by ascending 468 meters up the Oriental Pearl Tower, an eye-catching structure comprised of three spheres, or “pearls” that shoot up into the sky, signaling to tourists from New York City that they’ve at last arrived in Shanghai.  There was a glass-floor that was even more terrifying than the version in the CN Tower in Toronto, but I was too chicken to go on it. Let’s face it, the Chinese aren’t exactly renowned for craftsmanship J Better not to risk it! After leaving the tower, we stopped at the river front and ran around taking pictures of everything: the Baidu bridge, the former He Ping Hotel (former haunt of the Shanghai Triad), and strolled through a park outside the former Foreign Concession, where you can still see a sign that prohibits entrance to dogs and Chinese.  

We then made our way to Chenghuang Temple, an older, walled section of the city where one can still view traditional Chinese architecture. The temple is at least 700 years old, an ancient building originally built to house the city’s deities, who protected it against calamity. Today, it still has the beautiful sloping roofs and ornate woodwork, but is now mostly a center for shopping and eating. Shanghai is an expensive city, but the food is still comparably cheap and so delicious. We had our first taste of Shanghai’s famed soup buns here. They were better than anything I’ve ever had in New York: hot, juicy, and melts in your mouth kind of yum.

Pictures

View of Shanghai skyline from the breakfast room of the Indigo.

Turnip crisps

Various Shanghai delicacies (lao you tiao on the left was my favorite)

Infamous Shanghai soup dumplings!!!!



Day 1: JFK-Shanghai

It's 4:24 PM in Shanghai, which means it's 3:24 AM in New York. I'm going through the worst stage of jet lag right now, so I thought I'd hop on here and update everyone. If you saw my Facebook post, you'll know that my computer is broken! This is perhaps a blessing in disguise. I'll probably do more and see more instead of parking myself in front of the laptop... but that makes blogging a little bit more complicated. I'm using Pan's lap top right now. We're not in the same hotel room--he's staying with his mother on the 11th floor and I'm on the 20th floor.

Anyway, back to the trip! I was fourteen years old the last time I flew a flight this long... it was a completely different experience this time around! It didn't help that China Eastern screwed up our reservations. We'd picked very specific seats based on research I'd performed on seatguru.com. I didn't want to be near babies, the bathroom, or bulkheads (limited reclining room). Also, it was important for me to have a window seat. Even though we called numerous times before the trip to confirm our selections, the seat they ended up issuing us was not what we had picked. We ended up in the section of seats in the middle of the plane (no window!), near babies, and near the bathroom. For fourteen hours. It was a long, not so pleasant flight! I'd never been more thankful to land somewhere. Needless to say, we won't be flying China Eastern again.

I didn't know what to expect when I got off the plane. I'd never been to China before, but I feel like I came with all sorts of preconceived notions already, both good and bad. It turns out that Shanghai, at least, is a little of both: sometimes, it's exactly what I expected, sometimes, it's not at all what I imagined. To begin with, it's HUGE. New York, of course, is huge, too. One of the largest and most sophisticated cities in the world. But Shanghai is comparable in everyway, and sometimes surpasses New York! Its skyline is seemingly endless. Miles of glistening, towering skyscrapers, hyper-modern architecture, and bursting at its seams with activity. Even the airport was impressive.

It was about 8:30 PM local time when we emerged from immigration and met up with my dad and Pan's mom. We were whisked off to "dinner," even though I'm addled after the 14 hours flight and my brain thinks I should be having breakfast, instead. My first introduction to Shanghai cuisine is a late night foray into a bar. We had delicious Wonton Noodle soup (see pictures below).

Then we went to the hotel--and we now reach the highlight of my day :) I've seen lots of nice hotels, but I was completely floored by the Hotel Indigo. To put it lightly, it's my kind of hotel. I'll let the pictures below do most of the talking :)

Our plane



Oh-so-delicious plane food :-/

First moments in China! Waiting to get our luggage at Shanghai Pu Dong Airport.

My first bite of real Chinese food! Delicious Wonton Noodle Soup.

This was our all our luggage for our party of five. That is WAY TOO MUCH FREAKING LUGGAGE!

Cool looking traingular rocks in the hotel lobby.

Sink love!

You flush the toilet using something that resembles a thermostat, LOL.

Walk-in closet with motion sensing lights.

A very well-appointed mini-bar.

Check out the cool blue light.

The bathtub (complete with bath salts) and the rain shower head, the setting of what is unquestionably the most mind-blowing bathing experience I've ever had.

Ready to go!

It's coming soon...

ETA: 24 hours

So everything and everybody in the house is in a state of general upheaval at this point. The cat definitely knows something is afoot. He's been standing (or sitting, or rolling) sentinel outside both bedroom doors for hours today, even foregoing dinner :-( Last night, I met the guy who will be taking care of him. He's had cats before and he seems trustworthy and a real sweetheart, but I'm still going to worry about my kitty everyday. I'll be the picture of dysfunction, I'm sure.

This trip is unlike any that I've ever taken before. It's meticulously planned (everyday is accounted for, sometimes by the hour), but there's also a lot we're just leaving up to fate, and it's the latter that's giving me a heart attack.

For example: my dad is taking off a day earlier than we are. His flight (JAL 005 -- lucky him!!) departs tomorrow from JFK at 12:30 PM. His cell phone won't work once he gets to Shanghai. He's also a very uncooperative, misanthropic sort, so he refuses to contact anyone when he arrives and wants to just tough it out on his own for a night before he arrives. So what's the best "plan" we've come up with for when we eventually meet up? Since we have no way of contacting him and he has no way of contacting us, and he refuses to contact Pan's parents, we've agreed that he'll loiter at the exit from customs at Shanghai Pudong Airport. I showed him a map. He understands... um, I think. *sighs exasperatedly

There's been a lot of chatter about air pollution in Beijing and how it will be even more difficult to breathe for those of us who were never proficient in it in the first place. I checked the air quality index today--it's at "moderate," but just to be safe, I'm making sure to pack one of these. I have lots of them left over from when I thought I was going to catch H1N1 :-)

To cheer myself up, I've been ogling at pictures of the hotel Pan's mother booked for us in Shanghai. Everyone knows that a good hotel will always life my spirits:-) Below are photos of Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund, courtesy of TripAdvisor. It's part of the Intercontinental Group, which is exciting and reassuring. I'm sure you'll see/hear more about it soon.



This photo of Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund is courtesy of TripAdvisor
Whoa, what the heck is going on with the lobby decor? Don't know yet if I'm a fan of Tree Trunk Chic. First impression says probably not.


This photo of Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund is courtesy of TripAdvisor
Um... where's the hairdryer?


This photo of Hotel Indigo Shanghai on the Bund is courtesy of TripAdvisor
Wow, okay... *squints. I'm intrigued.

The count down begins

ETA: 4 Days.

Actually, we've been counting down for a while now. The tickets for this trip were bought in July. Originally, this trip was intended for only Pan and me. Somehow, my mom and dad ended up coming along, too. So on December 13th, be prepared to read about a trip featuring Pan, myself, my mom, my dad, Pan's parents, and sundry relatives.

What I've done for the trip so far is:

- Purchase a good international medical insurance policy for my mother. This trip is going to be very special for her. We've all had a long, tough year, but it's been especially rough for her. She became ill this past February with cardiac sarcoid.  After getting a pacemaker put in and seeing a rotating schedule of doctors and being placed on ten different medications, she's now been cleared for travel. I can't seem to shake the PTSD of the whole ordeal, though. I'm praying that this trip is the right decision for her, and that the benefits of her seeing China for the first time and enjoying a vacation will outweigh the risks (jet lag, exhaustion, ventricular tachycardia, diabetic crisis).

- Pampering Nail appointments, facials, new clothes, new shoes :) A good portion of this trip is supposed to be about presentation. I will be um... evaluated by the Pan clan. I'm pretty sure no matter what they say, Pan will marry me anyway :) However, I want to look my best. And it's always nice to have new stuff!

- Toby Oh dear me, I'm really going to miss my kitty friend :( But we've found someone to take care of him while we're in China. It'll be longest separation we've ever had. But at least he gets to stay at home. Maybe I'll  hide some bits of cat nip in odd places for him to find.

- Brush up on my Chinese etiquette Don't speak unless spoken to when interacting with my elders. Always pour tea at the table (can't people just pour their own damn tea @(#%&? ) . Don't talk back, don't look pissed, don't have an opinion, don't...breathe! Just... don't.

- Diet Sadly, I tried but didn't succeed. I will gain 5 pounds, guaranteed in China. Oh well.

On the whole, I'm very excited about this trip. It's the first time since 2000 that I've flown to Asia. And I've never been to China. I've only ever been to Taiwan.