Today we visited Yangshan Port on the outskirts of Shanghai. The port is the largest in China, and is also the largest and busiest in the world. We had nearly a 2 hour bus ride to the port, and we had a speaker on the bus to teach us a little bit about the shipping / logistics business. We learned that there are many types of transportation for freights, some of which are sea transportation, air transport, and trains. We also found out that most objects aren’t flown from place to place because the cost is prohibitive. If the object isn’t time sensitive (like perishable food or fast fashion), the products will be shipped because the price of the goods usually doesn’t make up for the price to fly them. I also remember that the average salary for a person in the logistics business is nearly $120,000 a year, which is quite high.

Additionally, we had to cross the second longest bridge in the world (35 km) to get to the port, so the civil engineering student in me was fangirling as we drove across it. When we were about halfway across the bridge, our guide pointed out a new section of port which was built in just under 2 months, which is unheard of in the USA, especially in Pittsburgh, where it takes 6 years to repair 1 mile of highway.

I wasn’t really expecting much from the port itself, but it was actually quite picturesque. The bus took us to a rocky outcropping where we scrambled like goats up to the top of the rocks for a better look at the whole port. It was gigantic and the view from the top was something you’d see in a James Bond movie, when Bond finds out that the criminal is hiding in a shipping container to escape and then there is an epic chase through the port, where Bond eventually triumphs and brings the criminal to justice.

After our port visit, we had the afternoon free. I was planning to go to a trampoline park with a couple of engineers, but we got back to the hotel room and I passed out in my bed until 6 PM. Once I finally succeeded in getting myself up, Sabrina and I wandered around the hotel and got bakery food (pan au chocolate and another egg cake), and eventually wandered our way into a restaurant. Because we’d had our fill of Chinese food for a while, we ordered a margarita pizza, which was surprisingly good.

Finally, we headed back to my room to try to work on blogs, but Sabrina fell asleep in my desk chair and I made her go to bed in her own room.