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The Great Chinese Adventure – A Shared Experience
#shanghai #china #travel #moveaborad #adventure
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
Previous posts in the series: The Great Chinese Adventure – the Commencement, A Halloween-birthday in Shanghai & The Great Chinese Adventure – South-West.
This story is not only about travels. This is a story of what true friendship really means, and how it only gets stronger and more successful with age. At this point, the two of us can proudly say we’ve been best friends for over 32 years.
At this point, I’d been living in China for almost a year. My best friend’s wedding was coming up in a few months, and before diving deep into the organization, she decided to take a short time off, only four days, to travel alone (for the first time ever), half-way across the world, only to see how her best friend was doing. Just imagine going from the middle of Europe to the distant eastern end of Asia, and changing the climate for just a couple of days. Magnificent! Luckily for her, Shanghai is generally warmer than most of Europe, so this March was like the beginning of summertime. Something of this sort is exquisite, even if you exclude hands-on contact with the Chinese lifestyle, finally understanding, after months of hearing about the difference in Chinese way of living – or at least having a glimpse of it.
It’s understandable we spent the four days running around like crazy, just to see as much as possible, experience Shanghai (or at least most of its central areas), try different foods and inhale some of this distinct air. Needless to say, we would walk between 20k and 25k steps per day, and we would not be able to even stand after the four-day excursion. But, as I love to say, it was more than worth the effort! Our adventure starts, of course, at the Pudong Airport. I made a sign, using Chinese characters to spell my friends name – you guessed it, she doesn’t speak Chinese, and, obviously, cannot read the characters. But it was a great joke and more than a warm-hearted welcome! Fun fact – even if you are to wait for a European or American person at most of Chinese airports, you’d rarely need a sign, especially in metropoles. Although Shanghai, per se, has a super high influx and is full of European and American expats and tourists, it is so infrequent to bump into one, due to a much higher concentration of the locals. Even waiting for someone unknown, flying with one of the biggest airplanes ever made, you’d hardly need a sign.
On the first day, we absolutely had to do a major tour of the most famous sites in Shanghai – the towers of Luijiazui. I’d say this is the city center, but since I also lived in the city center, miles and countless subway stations away, let’s simply call this part the epicenter, as all the most important cultural and social events occur in this part of the city. The four most popular towers (ordered by my personal emotional connection) are Oriental Pearl tower, Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center. Naturally, these aren’t the only super-tall skyscrapers in Shanghai, but these four will be distinguished by any local, whether a born Shanghainese or an expat living here. The Luijizui Square represents a point from which you can get to all of them on foot – do remember, this is not an activity for the faint of heart!
All of the towers include their own amusement – whether it be restaurants and cafes, business facilities, enormous hotel lobbies, museums, souvenir shops, clubs, you name it. Naturally, visiting complete facilities of just one tower should be a multiple-day travel. Due to a short amount of time at our disposal, we only went to the observation deck of Shanghai Tower – as it is the tallest building in China, and at the time the second tallest in the world (right after Burj Khalifa in Dubai*). This gave us the best possible observation of the metropolitan area. There are two things we both found devastating about this view. Firstly, the smog clouded the veil around a certain part of the city, rendering the “as far as eyes can see” view unavailable. Secondly, there was no hill or mountain in sight… After having some fun learning about world’s tallest skyscrapers, we went to the base, into the souvenir shop. The fun part is we actually recognized visitors from Bosnia – having spoken English in a clear Bosnian accent. Loved it! However, we had to move on, in order to see as much as possible.
- The latest information available, from August 2023, is that Shanghai Tower is currently the third tallest building in the world, after the aforementioned Burj Khalifa (Dubai), and Merdeka 118 (Kuala Lumpur). (source: thetowerinfo.com)
The parks around Luijiazui were absolutely marvelous. We felt like walking around New York, just placed about 12 time zones away – literally half-way across the world. Although a leviathan concrete jungle, sliced by wide boulevards and containing large park and pond areas scattered around, the whole conglomerate felt as an enormous city, as far as the view stretches in all directions, while also a nice natural park, all at the same time. One of my favorite sightings was a Disney shop in Luijiazui close to a Starbucks (I’m not just advertising brands, keep on reading). The Disney souvenir shop actually sold everything that one can find in a Disneyland or Disney World. As huge fans since our earliest days, suffice to say we were blown out of our minds to discover this gem. A nearby structure also contained statues of most popular Disney characters, we absolutely had to take pictures with! Also, it’s a great commercial for Disneyland in Shanghai – which I did not go to, this time around, but will make a great story from my second visit to this magical eastern jewel of the future. Why did I mention Starbucks? The one in China does not sell the best beverages, that’s a fact. But what it does sell? Unbelievably high-quality merchandise. We decided to buy one another a Shanghai mug as a gift. I still drink from mine, on a daily basis.
The story of parks has to continue with our post-nightfall adventure. After dinner, my BFF and I decided to go around the neighborhood, and explore it together. Literally two blocks (and about 30 minutes on foot) away, we bumped into a park, much grander in surface than the ones around Luijiazui. It was around 8:50 PM. At that point, I had been studying Mandarin Chinese for a couple of months. I’d guess a sign at the entrance said the park is open until 9 PM. But who puts opening and closing hours on a park, right? We went through the gate to see the beautiful and lively trees and ponds. About two hours later, as much as it took us to go around the main path through the park, we returned to a locked gate. And that’s an answer to my previous question. Apparently, they have reasons to lock parks after nightfall, even if communities live inside. I never got (or bothered) to learn why, but we stayed locked inside. After realizing this, we decided to walk around nearby exits, to see if any of them was still open. You guessed it – no. Would we sleep in the park? Well, technically, it would account for a new experience, right? But, since we had an agenda for next early morning, we had to find a way out. Fortunately, there was a relatively high side-wall, to assist us in finding footing to jump over the spiked fence, and onto a security guard house on the other side. This is one of the reasons I always say Fortune favors the courageous!
Our agenda for the next two days included a visit to the Shanghai Museum in the Huangpu District, and of course the old town. It was Wednesday, the only day in the week when the museum would be free, but only for the first 7k visitors. This meant we had to be there before 8 AM, if we plan to enter without a fee. Fortunately (again) we managed to do so, even if it meant sleeping for only 5-6 hours after the park “incident”. We did our research, and it was stated that on average one takes around 3,5 hours to go around the whole museum and see all the major exhibits. Believe it or not, that is only partially true. We ran through the whole museum, spending slightly under a minute at the most interesting exhibits only and simply running past most others, without catching a clear glimpse or even without seeing them all – in over four hours. The Shanghai Museum is a conglomerate of exhibits from this area, including most of, if not all major aspects of humanity – culture, origins, biology, geography, finance (yes, there are special rooms with exhibits of money from different places and eras), fashion, government, and who knows what not! I absolutely recommend going there, but I do not advise sparing less than at the very least six hours for this tour – that is, if you don’t intend to run past the majority of objects.
The topping on the cake of our short co-voyage will be the visit to the old city in Shanghai, which represents its urban core. In the past, this part used to be the government seat of Shanghai, and logically, it was surrounded by a tall, defensive wall. Nowadays, it is swarming with shops, local cafes and restaurants, and is more a combination of a museum of ancient times and an open shopping center. The food you can try here is some of the most traditional and catches the taste as similar to the one from the origins, as possible. Also, you can decide to bargain here, to buy interesting relics, such as traditional Chinese costumes – which, of course, we did. A bunch of silken products and traditional Chinese craftworks can be found in this locality. If you’ve ever been to Turkey, for example, you will not have a problem driving a good bargain for yourself here. In fact, there is (or at least was, at the time) a genuine Turkish ice-cream shop in the district. The old town is located in the city center, and it is only a few stations away from Luijiazui. What makes it unique and special are the traditional Chinese buildings, with ponds and streams connecting each yard with the others. Of course, the waters are not drainage systems, but actually teeming with life – especially carp, ducks and other waterfowl. If you travel to Shanghai, I will highly recommend visiting this now extended market-museum.
The truth is, I could write a whole book about this experience. Coming to a distant country you barely know anything about, even for just a couple of days, is bound to be a life-changing experience. And especially having lived in such a culture for a year, it will bring new perspectives to your life, and open a completely different level of conscience.
A huge life success is going half-way across the world, for but a few days, just to see your best friend. An even more significant life success is being that best friend.
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