Day 8 was our travel day to Shanghai. We traveled by bullet train and it took us about 5 hours to get there. We arrived around 2 or 3, I can’t really remember. After getting there, we settled into our hotel. This was by far the best hotel of the trip and arguably one of the best hotels I’ve ever slept in. It was a five-star hotel and it had everything you could possibly need, including very comfortable beds. After settling in, we went to get dinner at a really good pizza place. The pizza was appreciated because I was starting to get tired of Chinese food.
To end Day 8, we went on a river cruise to get a great view of the Pudong District of Shanghai. We met a group of older Chinese tourists in line to get onto the boat, and we got a legendary selfie with them! The view from the boat was beautiful! He Pudong skyline really is something to behold. Apparently, basically all the Pudong district was built in the last 20-30 years, which is insane! My theory is that it was Shanghai’s attempt to one up New York City. I wouldn’t say it’s the best skyline in terms of overall aesthetic, but the lights on the buildings were entertaining to watch. We also got a lot of pictures on the boat. Probably the most pictures I’ve taken in a single night.
Day 9 included visits to the East China University of Science and Technology and the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. We had to be ready by 9:00 that morning, so I got to sleep in till 8:00 which was very exciting.
The University visit was lackluster to say the least. I wasn’t as big a fan of this visit compared to the CUFE visit in Beijing. The tour guides seemed kind of unprepared and the lecture wasn’t nearly as interesting. I will say that it is always interesting to walk around college campuses, especially foreign ones, and take in the environment. I am certainly very thankful that the Asia Institute was able to set up the visit for us! We ate lunch at the university, and it was really good, like most food I’ve eaten in China, but I wasn’t very hungry, so I didn’t eat much.
After the university visit, we went to visit the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. The museum is all about the history of Shanghai, how it was built up and plans for the future. When you walk in, there’s a decently sized model of all of Shanghai, maybe about 20 feet by 10 feet. We walked upstairs and low and behold, there was a massive model of all of Shanghai. When I say massive, I mean massive. It took up a very large amount of space; I don’t even really know what to compare it to. Seeing that model made me really appreciate Shanghai for what it is, and that is a truly massive metropolis. It’s almost like if you took the five largest American cities and put them together to make one city.
To close out the night, we all went to an acrobatics show. The show was very fun to watch. I was kind of skeptical because I didn’t know whether I’d like acrobatics or not, but I ended up enjoying myself. Matt and Jake got selected to be part of a stunt on stage, so that was funny to watch! Those boys are some goons I’ll tell you. Jack, Max, Jordan, Cat, Frankie, Jake, Drew, and I wandered around a bit after the show, and came across the largest Starbucks in the world, so of course I had to get a coffee from there. I got some sort of caramel latte which looked and tasted delicious. We took the subway back to the hotel after that, and I went to bed almost immediately after getting back.