I had a test in my manufacturing class on Thursday. The test let out at 4 PM, and at 5 PM our group of about 20 left for Shanghai. We took taxis to the subway and then took the subway to the train station. Unfortunately, the subway stop right next to the Beijing Railway Station is under maintenance, so we had to get off one stop earlier and lug our bags half a mile to the station. Once we got to the station, we spent half and hour trying to find our platform by trial and error (the display boards were all in Chinese). Eventually we found someone to point us in the right direction, and when all was said and done, we were all nice and sweaty for our 12 hour overnight train to Shanghai :)
The Beijing Railway Station was complete madness! There were people everywhere! Sitting all over the floors, all along the stairs, sleeping on the ground, sitting on their luggage... it was crazy! One interesting thing is that every person who was sitting on the ground was sitting on newspaper! When we made it to our platform, we decided that we should put something between ourselves and the floor too since the locals were doing it. Probably a good idea... who knows what's on those floors? People are practically living at the station. I'm really glad I didn't have to go to the bathroom because I'm sure they were absolutely disgusting.
Our train was so AMAZING!!!! We had five compartments that were all next to each other on the same train car, so basically it was a party the whole way to Shanghai! Four people fit into each compartment, and I shared mine with Caroline, Hannah, and Sharifa. Our compartment was beautiful! There were four beds, two down and two up, with a table in between, and a big window to the outside. On our table was a real flower in a vase and four travel toothbrush kits! So cute! Each train car had two bathrooms and a sink area. You could walk along the entire train (16 cars) while it was in motion, and train car 9 was the dining car. We all felt like we were on the Hogwarts Express. Kristi kept asking when the food cart was going to come with her Chocolate Frogs :)
I definitely enjoyed the train ride to Shanghai, and I think I got more sleep on the train than I've gotten all week. We arrived in Shanghai at 7:30 AM on Saturday. We took the subway to our hostel (Blue Mountain Youth Hostel), and then we checked in, ate breakfast, and took showers!! Yes! Our hostel was so awesome! The staff was incredibly accommodating, the hostel was so clean and air conditioned, and our room was big and comfortable, and it had a private bathroom too!
At about 10 AM, me and my favorite travel group (Caroline, Hannah, Kristi, Jen, Gabby, Sara, David, Chris, Adrienne, and Melissa) headed out to see Shanghai. Shanghai has some BEAUTIFUL buildings! I loved the unique architecture! It was even cooler than the architecture in Hong Kong (I didn't think that was possible). One of Shanghai's buildings has a big open rectangle in the top of it. Apparently, it was supposed to be a circle, but during it's construction, China was not on good terms with Japan, and the circle looked too much like the Japanese rising sun, so they changed it to a rectangle at the last minute.
We spent the entire rest of the morning, afternoon, and evening walking around the city. It was extremely hot! 38 degrees Celsius, and a heat index of 115 degrees Fahrenheit! We went to the Urban Planning Museum where we got to see the history of the construction of Shanghai's skyscrapers. There was a really neat model of the entire big city and surrounding areas. I also learned that Shanghai is really pumped about hosting the 2010 World Expo. There were signs everywhere, as well as statues of the blue Expo mascot that looks like Gumby.
We walked through a park to enjoy some greenery. Then we walked down Nanjing Lu, Shanghai's insane shopping district, on our way to the Bund, the older part of Shanghai that has lots of old European style buildings. After touring the Bund and taking pictures of Shanghai's Oriental Pearl (a tall observation tower) from across the water, we took ride through a psychedelic tunnel underneath the water to the other side where we spent the rest of the day.
Later that night, we all dressed in red, white, and blue and went out to a club called Windows to celebrate the 4th of July :) It was such a great time, Happy Birthday USA!
Unfortunately, I only got three hours of sleep that night because the next morning I was taking a train to Suzhou, a small city about an hour outside of Shanghai. Suzhou is a city built along canals, and thus it is considered the Venice of China. Suzhou was beautiful and very quaint. I went with Hannah, Caroline, Kristi, Shayna, Noyoun, Scott, and Michael. We visited the Northern temple Pagoda and climbed it's 12 stories to the top overlooking Suzhou. We also went to Lion Grove and got ourselves lost in the Rock Gardens. The Rock Garden was like an adult play ground, plenty of tall rocks that created winding mazes, dark caves, and walls to climb. It was so fun, and we took some awesome pictures among the rocks.
We ate dumplings for lunch at a local family restaurant, and they helped us get taxis to Tiger Hill. The Tiger Hill Pagoda stands on the hill's summit. It is the famous leaning pagoda of Suzhou. In fact, it is known as China's Leaning Tower of Piza, even though it was built before the tower in Piza during the Northern Song Dynasty from 959-961 AD. Also, this pagoda is not leaning because of sinking ground like in Piza. Instead, the pagoda guards the tomb of King He Lu. King He Lu was a zealous collector of rare swords, and it is said that the 1000 swords were buried deep within the hill underneath the sword pool. Thousands of years ago, people dug into the hill searching for the swords, so that is why the pagoda is leaning! Part of the hill is missing! Also at Tiger Hill, we walked through a bonzai garden with over 1000 bonzai trees! How awesome!
Later in the afternoon, we took the train back to Shanghai, and went out to club BonBon to top off our wonderful weekend. I had the time of my life that night, and we didn't go to sleep until the sun came up! I really enjoy the company of the students from Tech that are on this trip with me. We are having such an awesome time together and are sharing so many good memories. We slept in a bit on Sunday, and then we visited the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum until it was time to go to the train station to ride back to Beijing. The Science Museum in Shanghai is incredible! I wish I had had more time there! There was so much to see!
Our train ride back to Beijing and that Monday following was very interesting. So I showered Sunday morning when I woke up, then I walked around all day in the oppressive heat. We then lugged our bags to the Shanghai Railway Station, and took our 12 hours train ride bag to Beijing. The train was supposed to get in a 7:30 on Monday morning, which gave us enough time to subway and then taxi back to campus in time for class that the professor had graciously agreed to push back to 9:30 instead of 9 to give us a little extra time to get back from the train station. However, the train was delayed by and hour, so we didn't arrive in Beijing until 8:30. Naturally, it was Monday morning rush hour, so a taxi would not be the quickest way back to campus. So, we lugged our bags half a mile to the subway station, took a crowded hour long subway ride to Wudaoku, and then we spent half an hour trying to get taxis back to campus. It was so hard trying to find an empty taxi in the middle of rush hour, not to mention that we needed 5 empty taxis to get all 20 of us back to campus. Basically, we got dominated by public transportation for an entire day straight. So, by the time I got back to campus, I just threw my bag in my room, grabbed my backpack and bike, and pedaled to class. I arrived at 10:30.
Class ended at 11:30, and my group and I spent our break between classes working on our project proposal that was due at 2 PM. We then had class from 2-4, and then I went to the weight room until 5:30. When I finally got back to my dorm, I unpacked and waited a few hours until the shower time period started, and then I FINALLY got my shower after all of that travel :) Luckily, my shower head was producing an ample amount of water. Yay!
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