Chinese New Year Vacations

A quick update:

Our first module is over. The normal Chinese semester started yesterday, and they've been off since soon after we arrived in Shanghai. I'm now done with the Chinese language and culture classes as well as one other class. I still have my online class, and I'm starting up Thermodynamics II and Heat & Mass Transfer here at Jiao Tong. Saturday, we moved from the downtown Xuhui campus to the Minhang campus, which is a good 45 minutes from downtown by the metro.

I'm done living in a hotel, so that's nice. This is, however, my first time living in a dorm, since I've lived in an apartment from my freshman year. the room itself is the same size, if not smaller than hotel room, but there's actually place to put my clothes here. Our doors lock automatically, so we need to remember to take our keys everywhere with us. Just yesterday, I stepped outside to ask some of the guys a question and absentmindedly pulled my door shut behind me. Thankfully, I was able to get a key from Ayi (the dorm building manager) because Chris was gone and didn't back until after 10 that night. Hopefully, I never do that again! My keys are currently residing in my pocket and will remain there.

Anyway, on to Vacation (WARNING: This is a long post)

We did a lot and saw a lot, so in order to keep this short[er], I tried to put mostly pictures and not a lot of words, but I'm not sure if I accomplished that.

Jordan, Tom, and Marshall

On Monday the 8th, all of us who had not already gone off on other vacations (17 total) started off with a tour guide to visit Suzhou and Hangzhou, two cities a little south of Shanghai. Our tour guide was a Chinese man named David who has given tours all over the world. He was a lot of fun. Instead of a flag for us to gather around, he had a red monkey hanging from a stick.

Our first stop was Tiger Hill, which is home to the Shanghai version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We walked through a gateway that was 1,200 years old to get to the hill. The hill was a very strategic position due to its fantastic view of all the surrounding area.

1,200 year old gateway

After Tiger Hill, we ventured to a silk factory where we saw how they get the silk from the cocoons and how they turn it into thread and fabrics.

We ate lunch and then headed to the Concubine Gardens. This was where the emperors concubines (one of them had 3,000) went after their service.

That evening, we went on a riverboat cruise. It was pretty neat. We went down a canal that had shops and stores all along it, packed with people. When they saw all of us white people, we instantly became celebrities. Everyone was waving and saying "hello" and some were even pulling out their phones to take pictures of all of us. We reached the end of our cruise and turned around to go right back past all of our fans. It was a lot of fun!

After the river boat cruise, we went to walk around the very area where we saw all the people. It was really neat to walk past all the shops. We ventured into a few of them to look at all the tourist items one could buy. I've never had a potato in a spiral tower before, but it was pretty good. The guy cut it, put it on the stick, and then dropped it in the hot oil. After it was cooked, we were asked what seasoning we wanted on it. Since the lady didn't speak English and we don't know Mandarin, we had to play the "Point and Discover" game. I'm not even sure exactly what mine was, but it was good. Four of us each got one, so of course we had to get a group picture. 

Sagar (he rarely makes a "normal" face), Me, Matt, Cai

We stayed for a good bit, so I was able to capture a really neat picture of the lit-up canal at dusk.

Sagar loves to mimic statues

The next day, we visited a temple in the morning, a silk embroidery place in the afternoon, and took a cave tour in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the silk embroidery place did not allow pictures, so I can't share the amazing works of art with you. I'm sure if you looked it up online, you could find some. 

At the temple, there was a room with 300 gold monks. We were told that one, and only one, of the statues was actually gold, while all the others were just gold colored. We were unable to identify the gold one, and it's possible that it's just an urban myth they tell to tourists.

There were a few times we were up above on a higher level, and the roof was right there beside us. Not sure why, but I always had the urge to jump on the roof and run all over them. The guys assured me this would be a bad idea, so I refrained myself.

Theo, Lukas, Shaadwal, Marshall, Cai, Me, Samuel, Scott (photo cred: Tom)

The cave was a really neat place. They had a set walkway, so it wasn't anything too crazy, but they had lots of red, green, and blue lights illuminating the corners and crevices along the pathway, making it look really cool. to get back outside the mountain, we took a little train. At one point the driver started honking the horn and yelling at us to duck down, way down. We went through a section where the rock ceiling was maybe a foot above the top of the little cars. We were completely hunched over, getting as low as we could.

 

Tom had a really powerful laser that was a lot of fun to see in the caves, especially with all of the lights that were already there.

 








The next morning, we took a trip to West Lake. We got on a boat and went around on the water for a while. The water wasn't crystal clear, but it was much cleaner than the Huangpu River that goes through Shanghai. The boat ride was split into two parts, with a large part of the tourists getting off at the end of the first part. This made the boat pretty empty for the second half, which was quite peaceful.

To end the trip, we went to a place where they grow Dragon Well tea, one of the best green tea leaves ever, apparently. We were able to try some and it was, indeed, quite delicious. I had been wanting to buy some good green tea, so I decided to buy some of these really good leaves. In being the first person in our group to purchase some, I was given a free 50g of tea leaves.

The Trip Out West

We returned to Jiao Tong Wednesday late afternoon. I had time to get supper, complete a homework assignment, pack, and catch a couple hours of sleep before heading out on my next adventure. Cai, Tom, and I decided to take a trip out west to the Sichuan Valley. We left the Faculty Club at 4:30 and arrived to a dead airport, which was really weird to see. Over the Chinese New Year, a massive portion of the population returns home, making normally bustling cities like Shanghai feel like ghost towns.

Our first destination was Chongqing. Our flight left at 7:30 and we landed about three hours later. After wandering around for a while before we found our hostel, we settled in and then headed out for lunch. After lunch, we went to the People's Square where the Three Gorges Museum was and explored that for a few hours. That evening, we wandered around the riverside, where there was a bunch of street fair type stuff going on in celebration of the New Year. The view of the river was pretty neat.

Walking around Geleshan

The next day, Friday, we headed out to explore Gele National Forest, which was just west of Chongqing. We weren't sure exactly how to get into the park, and there was the whole language barrier that kept us from asking the locals. We relied on maps, and ended up walking around the entire south end of the National Forest and entered on the west side. Our travel path was actually the highway. It was a lot of walking, but it was an adventure, so I enjoyed it. Once we got into the forest and on the mountain, we all deemed it completely worth the walk. It was nice to get away from the city life and into some nature. The view over Chongqing was nice, but the air was extremely hazy, so we couldn't see beyond that.

Overlooking Chongqing

Cai, Me, and Tom on Geleshan ("shan" means mountain)

Me working my way to the top

At one point on the mountain, we came upon a rock climbing wall. There were a bunch of Chinese people there that immediately wanted to watch us attempt the climb. Some of them also asked to take a picture with us. This was actually pretty common out west where people have never or rarely see westerners. The climb was a lot of fun. I have never climbed an inclined wall before, so that was a new experience. I was pretty happy to be able to make it all the way to the top.

We found that when we started off, we were actually extremely close to the entrance on the east side, but had simply turned south on the road instead of north, which would have helped us out a lot. But it is fun to be able to say we encircled half of Gele National Forest.

 








In the evening, we walked around Ciqikou, an old style area of Chongqing. It was very similar to the area we walked around in Suzhou by the canal. We stopped in a place where you put your feet in a fish tank full of little fish. They nibbled on our feet for twenty minutes, and it tickled a lot. Cai though it hurt. It was definitely an interesting experience.

Saturday, we got up early and caught a train to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province. This time, we found our hostel right away. We dropped our stuff off and then headed out for lunch. After lunch we took a bus to the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Center. We walked around all afternoon looking at the giant pandas and the red pandas. It was definitely a fun day. 

Ever have one of those days?

That evening, Tom and Cai walked around Chengdu a little, but I headed back to the hostel for a quiet relaxing evening by myself. We had been go go go for the past week and I needed some alone time to recharge. The next day we started off on what would become one of the greatest adventures of my life so far. But that's a long story for the next blog post (hopefully very soon).

Have a Splendiferous Day!