After our long overnight train ride from Xi'an, we arrived around six in the morning at our hostel, where we were told that our room would not be available until after noon. We sat up and drank coffee until we were able to make our way into our 4 bed dormroom. During the meantime, we thought it would be a good idea to purchase our train tickets to Hong Kong. We asked one of the guesthouse employees, who was arranging our travel, if going to Hong Kong would affect our current visas we were using. He chuckled to himself, and said "No, it's not a problem...Hong Kong is part of China."...keep this in mind for later on. So, we made it to our dorm, and one of our "roomies" was a Chinese student who was briefly studying in Shanghai, and his name is "Jackie Chen". He thought this was quite amusing, and actually, so did we.
Shanghai is the most populated city in China with over 13 million people. One of the most intriguing aspects of Shanghai is it's vast array of architecture. When you go to "The Bund", the street is lined with a number of old European inspired buildings which create an interesting juxtuposition to all of the new, super-modern, brightly lit buildings across the water in Pudong. We spent a lot of time strolling along the Bund admiring the multitude of buildings.
Another, big draw of Shanghai (not necessarily for us, but for A LOT of people) is the shopping. In some areas there are huge towering stores that go on for blocks while learing over a "walking" only promenade. It is fun to go see all of the lights and the people, but the amount of consumerism here is a bit much, all the while you must keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for people hawking fake wares. "You want watch, bag, shoes?". Most of them have a good sense of humor and would realize quickly when we weren't interested, but we had some people that followed us for blocks.
What is also quite interesting about Shanghai is how we could change our surroundings by simply taking a right, or a left. There were times when we might be walking along one of the shopping meccas and feel like we needed a reprieve, and by simply turning the corner, we would find ourselves amidst dimly lit streets full of food stalls, card games, mah jong, and people just hanging out mellow style.
This brings me to a funny story that happened to us one evening after we began a hunt for some cheap eats away from all the glitz. We found ourselves leisurley walking down a little back street where people were selling a vast array of seafood, snakes, and fowl on the streets (which were all still alive), in hopes of finding a place to get some grub. We entered a couple of venues that just didn't hit the mark and it was beginning to get quite late. We finally found a little place that had some appealing looking photos, so we decided to take our chances. We ended up ordering a couple dishes. One that we were sure was noodles. One that was a bowl of something brown that looked like battered meat and that the girls trying to help us thought was quite delicious. The noodles came and were pretty tasty. Then the "battered meat" dish came. First there was a sterno-like substance that was set aflame, then the stone bowl containing the other half of our evening meal was set atop. We gave it a go. The first bite was fish...with loads of bones and skin. That's okay. It tasted good, just took a lot of work. Then we discovered some fatty pork meat? Maybe? Then Greg pulled out something that VERY much resembled the hind end of a frog's body...half of the stomach and legs that had been a bit mangled. We should mention, that we saw a number of people selling little froggies on the steet along with turtles, fish, and fruits and veggies. There were several other pieces that we just flat out didn't know what they were. We tried to eat as much as we could but unfortunately, couldn't eat too terribly much of it. Our foreign palates just weren't accustomed to this sort of meat melange. We realized that we would be a little more wary of some photos. We chalked it up to the constant surprises of travelling.
The day we left for Hong Kong, we packed up, ate some quick lunch (as the food on the train can leave something to be desired...we have seen plastic laundry baskets atop metal carts on wheels filled with grey-ish, brown, tubular bouncy meat being pushed up and down the aisles...and made our way to the station. Remember the part earlier, where the guesthouse employee said not to worry about our visas because, "Hong Kong is part of China"? Well, as we went through immigration at the train station (once we saw the sign that read IMMIGRATION, we knew we might be in trouble), had a visa stamp quickly marked in our passports, which would force us to use our final entry upon our return from Hong Kong, we were told that "Yes, Hong Kong is part of China...a SPECIAL part of China." We would have to arrange yet another visa for our future travel to Tibet...so it goes...so it goes...
