Anyway so SHANGHAI BABY!
So lets start where I left off with Friday! A nice free breakfast courtesy of this lovely hostel; steamed pork buns, toast, cereal and orange juice, lovely! Pity you couldn't use the word lovely to describe the weather... Yep its raining, nay pouring, however it is still very warm. Today I was going out with Julie, Alice and Mark into Shanghai to explore! Today was Alice's birthday so she was very excited and mentioned it every 2 seconds.
Now despite the poor weather I decided to wear shorts and a tshirt with a rain coat (such a tourist). Now first impressions of Shanghai basically consist of 'bloody hell this place is HUGE' and 'LOOK HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE THERE ARE!', Xining has a mere 2 and a half million (still stupidly big in English Standard) while Shanghai has a population of 23 million... (3x London's population, almost a third of the entire UK...). So yeah BIG. And it is so westernized! It truly is an international city, there are westerners everywhere! In Xining I can go weeks without seeing another white person (minus the other interns) whilst here they are everywhere.
So our first stop was people's square, this is a beautiful park surrounded by sky scrapers.
I really enjoyed looking round it, we walked in to somewhere that looked like a market but they seemed to be selling bits of paper. After closer inspection and a helpful English speaking Chinese man called David, we found out that it was a match making market! Parents would try and find suitable matches for their children!!!! This takes online dating to a whole new level, if you are male your 'profile' (just a sheet of paper) contains information on how much money you make (or have the potential to make) and what you own. If you are female then all it has is a picture and some vague information. Apparently for men beauty is the most important and for female it all about the money! This isn't quite an arranged marriage as they have the ability to vito a match (apparently) but it is certainly very alien! Apparently the parents are desperate for grandchildren but their children don't want children (or want to wait). It is common for a parent to market their children even if they have a boyfriend/girlfriend! Crazy eh?
After a stroll through the very busy marriage market, it was lunchtime so naturally we asked the birthday girl what she wanted to eat, with no hesitation whatsoever she lead us to McDonalds. None of us argued seeing as Mark and I are starved of western food where we are, my kids didn't even know what a McDonalds is! It was GOOD too! We came out to torrential rain so a mad dash to the metro station and we were on our way to the East Nanjing! When we arrived, the rain had stop but Mark and I had fallen into a trap! The girls wanted to go clothes shopping!! Noooooooo!!! They made a bee line towards 'Forever 21' and left Mark and I dazed and confused. We decided not to follow them and instead did some exploring of our own. It was busy and there were lots of people who were trying to see us everything from clothes, to fake watches, to shoes, to phones. They were very rude, persistent and unpleasant. Mark and I elected to go off the beaten track and take one of the less busy back streets, it was nice and a lot more like the China we knew.
Even after exploring the girls still weren't ready so we dragged them from the store (it had been 45 minutes). We then made our way to the Bund, now the Bund is where you can see that iconic view of Shanghai's skyline. Well we could only see half of it. Stupid weather... After this point Mark and I had had enough and we headed back to the hostel while the girls kept shopping. I went for a nap and Mark uploaded some photos. Oh and someone left my room so I moved onto the bottom bunk! SO MUCH BETTER!!
That night was Alice's birthday night out. We had a few drinks before we left so we were tipsy while riding the tube, much to the sober Mark's embarrassment. We were singing (very loudly) and just generally being silly. We arrived at 'Windows Too' at about 1045 and met up with everyone else, now this place was packed with westerners and the drinks were cheap (15RMB for a vodka and coke), however the alcohol was very watered down. I met some familiar faces from CAMIC namely Sam (the guy I flew with from England), Irish Steve and a few other girls who I had met before. I also met some people who I knew by face but knew no better! It was great to meet some new faces and catch up with old ones, tales of placements and journeys were passed around. Then it was time to dance! One of the new girls, Sarah, and I dominated the dance floor with our dance to 'Call Me Maybe'. Hilarious! Lots of alcohol was consumed. But then the night was taken to a new level! KATHRYN ARRIVED! AHHHHHHHHHH! I have missed this girl so much! I almost knocked her over with my hug! Anyway she had her friend Laura with her from back home in England, she was really nice too.
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| Steve, Kris and Sarah |
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| French Sam, Sarah and I |
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| Alice and Steve |
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| French Sam, Sara and I |
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| Sarah |
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| Alice, Sophie, French Sam and I |
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| AHHHHH! Laura, Kathryn, Sam and I |
Needless to say more celebratory drinks were drunk but it got to 3AM and I decided to call it a night and went home with Kathryn and Laura! Crashed out on my bottom bunk and slept until my phone decided to make stupid noises waking me up, this kept happening throughout the night! Stupid phone! Apologies to the 2 German guys and the Chinese guy I was sharing a room with.
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