shanghai

My last few days were spent in the wonderful city of Shanghai.  It was a fun filled last few days.  We made a couple visits to the Bund, the French Concession, got to go to church, we hit up a couple museums,  took a bus tour of the city, and went to the fake markets (multiple times, might I add).  My favorite part would probably have to be the fake markets.  We all know how much I love shopping and after pretty much being deprived of it, it was fun to shop a little bit.  I got a kick of the bargaining thing.  The people were ridiculous and it was kind of fun seeing how low you get get the price dropped to.  If you couldn't get it for as low as you wanted, all you had to do was walk to the next store and you would most likely get it for cheaper.  It was also kind of a pain because they would mark things up ridiculously high and then they would proceed to tell us that they would make no money if they sold it to us for cheaper.  They lie, just watch out if you ever find yourself at a fake market in China.

We were also able to meet up with a friend that we originally came to China with.  It was great to be with a friend.  Friends are something that we have been lacking lately so it was a nice change of pace and it spiced up our conversations a little bit.

In the bigger, more touristy cities in China, they have things called tea scams and everyone warns you about.  Ever since coming to China, I have been warned about this thing.  I kind of started to doubt that it really happened.  Only until this past week when people tried to hit me with it, twice!  Pretty much, young people, around my age, will walk around the city and ask you to take a picture of a couple of them.  Their English is really good so they will then start to have small talk with you.  Small talk then leads to them telling you that they are going to go watch tea.  If you didn't already know, tea making/pouring/drinking/andwhateverelse is quite the art.  They will invite you to go with them.  It is a trick and it is terrible because they will take you to try a tiny bit of tea and then chart you an insane amount.  It is dumb, so don't fall into their traps.

Overall, my trip to Shanghai was a fun experience.  I loved seeing the Bund at night with all of the fun lights.  They joke in the travel book saying something along the lines...  Well, you may not be able to see the Great Wall from space but you will have a heck of a time missing Shanghai.  Shanghi is a mega city with more than 30 thousand people in it.  It was insane.  Also, in this mega city, we happened to run into a couple that we came over with and spent a few days with in Beijing.  It was awesome and totally unexpected.  I never thought it would have happened in a city that big.

{this is the building we had church in}

{we met up with our friend Garrin and we didn't let a lot of rain stop us}

{on our way to the airport.  we had so much luggage to take on the subway and it was such a pain but we made it through}