Today was another travel day, this time from Xi’an o Shanghai. However, this time it was a 6-hour train ride, on a train that was going 200 mph. I do not remember much of the train ride because I slept for the whole trip. When I woke up, everyone was looking amazed that I slept for 6 straight hours in an uncomfortable sitting position. It was disgusting though when I got up because all I heard were my bones cracking since they have not moved for 6 hours.

After dropping our luggage off at the hotel, we went to a shopping mall under the Oriental Pearl Tower. However, inside the mall was the Shanghai History Museum. Inside the museum it went over the history of Shanghai before there was a real government in place till Cold War time and it did this from wax figures showing a lifestyle/shop and small figurines and towns you would see with model trains. When walking through it I mainly talked to Dr. Lei. At some points, he would make me guess what the display was showing such as a Herb Shop. What they were doing such as a man smoke an opium pipe.

After the opium display I asked Dr. Lei that there were two opium wars and from there we talked about the history classes I took in middle and high school. We even started to compare the different perspectives we were taught in school. For example, in China Mao is worshipped as a saint, while for me it seemed like Mao was the “bad guy”.

After spending an hour in the museum, we went on a tourist boat ride in Shanghai’s Bund. And there we took pictures of Shanghai with their night lights on.