City #3: Shanghai

While we were all really exited to be heading to our next city, landing in Shanghai was bittersweet. I was so excited to be in China and wanted to spend more time there. Yet at the same time, the packed schedule was starting to wear on me. Regardless, after meeting our new guide and boarding the bus for an hour and a half ride to the city center, I was quickly back on track and ready to make the most of my last few days in China.

After learning of some minor changes in plans, we rolled with the punches, eating lunch at our new hotel before heading off to the Jade Buddha temple. The temple itself was a beautiful and peaceful place to visit, especially because there were only a small number of tourists there at the time. Anna, our guide, gave us some really interesting information on the many Buddhas in the temple and we were able to see some gorgeous Jade Buddha carvings. We were also lucky to see the monks say what might have been an early evening prayer: gathering in the temple to chant and sing together.


The sun was setting as we made our way to the Bund, or waterfront,!) from which we had an amazing view of the city skyline (although the view from my hotel room turned out to be even better Careful of the pick-pockets here, we then crossed the street and walked down a shopping street, where I finished up my Christmas shopping in a market off the main street. Some of the guys on the trip ended up buying a bunch of DVD’s, that are either classics, have yet to come out on DVD and even some that have yet to come out in the theatres, for around $1.50 each!

That night we dined in the fancy, revolving restaurant at the top of the Shanghai Pearl TV-Tower. We took two elevators up to the restaurant, 267m up, and after dinner also visited the upper observation deck at 350m. The restaurant was AMAZING. It was an enormous buffet from which I tried snail, bullfrog and rabbit, while also enjoying sushi, a green tea soufflé, an enormous amount of fresh watermelon and many kinds of vegetables. It’s safe to stay that I may still be full from that dinner…



The last stop of the night was to the Hyatt. It is an amazing structure of 88 floors (double lucky!) and is known for its beautiful architectural design which is shaped to look like a pagoda. We visited the bar inside at the 54th floor and from there were able to look up and then ride up the additional 30 floors to the top of the hotel.

The next day, our last day in China, I started off with a quick workout in the morning. Our hotel finally had a gym in it that was open early enough for me to go for a run on the treadmill, there was no way I was going to go exploring outside in the polluted streets, and after dinner the night before I definitely needed a jog. Unfortunately the treadmill was really different from the others I have run on and felt almost spring-loaded! I ran for around 25 minutes, but had to hang on the entire time to keep from losing my balance and spiraling off the machine…

Our first activity of the day was a visit to a local textile factory. The highlight of the day was easily our guide-a very successful and ambitious business woman Jane, who works as a coordinator for many global clients and with many different factories. Jane was EXTREMELY informative and open to our questions, helping us to learn a lot about factory life, business in china, and her daily life. The factory we visited was more than an hour outside of the city and had recently downsized to 70 workers: mostly women, all of whom live in dormitories. While we were in the factory the workers were currently sewing board shorts for the Australian market!

After the tour we went to a large French supermarket chain that has been successful in China: Carrefour. We ate lunch in the food court, then spent the remainder of the time walking around the store checking out the amazing things they have available including live eels, fish, many different dried things (including human placenta…EW) and various interesting Chinese and foreign goods.

Our last stop of the daylight hours was the Yu-gardens, a large garden that has changed hands many times in the past and is home to beautiful plants, ponds and statues. We did our best to pay attention, but I think we had finally reached our breaking point. We then killed time in the market streets around the gardens doing some last minute shopping before heading off to the acrobatic show. The show was amazing and very much like the Cirque du Soleil, meaning we left feeling exhausted, amazed, disgusted, impressed and in pain just from watching the show! We spent our last night in China visiting a few bars, I naturally turned in much earlier than others, before heading to bed and off to the airport in the morning.

After a bus ride, a magnetic train ride (over 300km per hour!) and around 11 hours on a plane we finally landed back in Copenhagen, where I am now doing my best to catch up on emails, write these blog entries and fight the jetlag that currently seems to be winning…