Shanghai, China

The voyage to Shanghai was really nice. Hardly anyone was on the ship so it was very quiet, I could get caught up on homework and sleep, and also the food was so much better. We had waiter service as opposed to the cafeteria style we usually get. And everything on the menu was 10 times better than the food they usually set out. The big downside was not being able to travel around China for those two days, but I can't take that back.

The first day we were there I had two trips planned. The first was the Maglev Train trip. We took a drive around some major parts of Shanghai and had a brief city orientation. Then we went to the Jin Mao Tower, which I think is either the sixth tallest building in the world or in Shanghai. We took the elevator up to the 88th floor from the -6th floor. The ride took only around seven seconds or so before we reached the top. The view was very beautiful - you could see anything. After that we went to ride the Maglev Train. This train goes to the airport and can hit a maximum speed of 431 km/hr or about 267 miles per hour. We were able to ride it during a time when it went to its maximum speed. It was very fast, to say the least. But I wasn't ever scared until we passed a train coming the other way and for a second it sounded like we just collided with it since we passed it going so fast. The Maglev stands for Magnetic Levitation, so it uses magnetics and sits about 10 cm on top of the tracks and doesn't actually touch them. It was a very cool experience to ride on the Maglev, but I don't think the trip should have taken so long. After that, I went with a friend to eat by the ship at a Chinese restaurant. I had noodles and rice, and it was decent. By that time I had to leave for the next trip, which was an acrobatics performance. Our guide said that the ERA Acrobats worked with Cirque Du Soleil. The show was pretty incredible, it had flexible people, acrobatics flying in the air, extreme balancing acts, and even a motorcycle show, where they had six people on motorcycles going around in circles in a giant ball. That was probably my favorite.

The next day I had a trip to the Zhujiajiao Water Village. I was really excited to see a village, since that's been my favorite parts of each country. But, in my opinion, the village wasn't even really there anymore. I read that in 2012 (must have been really recent) it had been converted to a bunch of gift shops. It did have a waterway going down the middle of the village, but our guide said they don't use it anymore except for tourists. So when we got there we took a little boat ride along the waterway to one end of the village and back. Then we had two hours to walk around and shop at the gift shops. I was super disappointed that we didn't even have a guided tour or anything. It seemed just like some scam to make money, which I'm sure it was. After just walking around for two hours we went back on the bus and left. The only thing I ended up buying was a name painting for my niece, as everything else was really overpriced. I had planned to go out to the markets after that trip and had a friend to go with, but she bailed at the complete last minute. So I tried to find other people to go with, but everyone either was going to sleep or going out to get drunk.

The last day I woke up really early to hit the markets. I wanted to do a little shopping before we left and I had an FDP in the afternoon. So I met up with some people and went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum underground markets. It was huge and had a ton of cool souvenirs to buy, but I also wanted to go to the Yu Garden Markets, so I only spent about 20 minutes at that market and headed to the second. I didn't buy much at the first market since I was holding out for the Yu Garden, but it was complete crap. It was like three stories of junk. A ton of jewelry places, kids toys, and knock off items. I didn't even have that much time to really shop since I had to be back on the ship by 1 for my FDP, so I quickly bought a bunch of junk items and left. But before I was leaving, I couldn't find my phone in my bag, I searched and searched and my friend even looked in my bag and couldn't find it. I was convinced it was stolen. But later I magically found it in my bag. I barely made it back in time for my FDP to the Shanghai Media Group, which ended up being a television station so I was extremely excited to go there. However, when we got there our teacher found out that the person he'd been corresponding with didn't really work there, or at least no one knew who he was. So our trip got canceled, which was a great ending to the day. I couldn't go out again because I'd spent all my money earlier since I didn't expect to go out again and everyone I knew was already out so there was no one to go with. I just came back to the ship and stayed on the rest of the time. So my time in Shanghai wasn't the best, I probably will never come back here. But I would like to travel to Northern China, to the Great Wall. Next we're going to Kobe, Japan.