Day 3 – Traveling the Streets of China

May 17, 2017

The third day of the trip was the first day we were out traveling the streets of China.  The morning began with a breakfast provided by the Grand Central Hotel in Shanghai.  The breakfast had a mixture of Eastern and Western dishes.  Multiple types of fruits were available such as watermelon, dragon fruit and cantaloupe, there was fried noodles and beef stew as well.  The hotel also provided an omelet bar as well as pancakes and French toast.

Mei Yo Zian, Tai Guay Li and Bu You

We learned a few sayings on the bus ride to our first destination, the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) Observatory. These sayings proved to be useful as later in the day, we went walking around in a typical Chinese market. The three most important sayings helped us turn away people that would be bombarding us to buy imitation watches and purses.  The statements learned were, Bu You, which means no thank you, Mei Yo Zian, which means no money and lastly, the one that proved to be very helpful was Tai Guay Li, which means to expensive.  After saying to a vendor a few times “Tai Guay Li”, you could get them to lower their prices by 50%.

Shanghai’s Eye

The weather on day 3 was perfect!  The skies were clear and the temperature was about 70 degrees with a beautiful constant breeze.  This type of weather is only experienced about 60-80 days a year in China…..we were thankful to be a part of one of those days.  Since the weather was so beautiful, we were able to travel to the top of Shanghai’s Eye, part of the SWFC Observatory. At the top of the building, 100 stories and 500M high, you were able to see Shanghai skyline.  The mass amount of skyscrapers in the 6,400 square kilometer city was overwhelming.  As you looked across the river, you could see the difference in architecture and quality of the buildings, due to the difference in time that Puxi and Pudong were developed.

Shanghai’s Bund

After descending the 100 stories of the observatory, we traveled over to Shanghai’s Bund, which is a boardwalk area on the western bank of the Huangpu River.  This river separates Eastern and Western Shanghai and provides a beautiful view of the Shanghai architecture.  On the eastern side, the architecture is very modern as the new financial district was developed after the 1980’s.  The western side’s has a European influence due to its development in the 1890’s as an open port.

Spices Promote Good Health

We continued on to another Lazy Susan style lunch, which was filled with multiple textures, tastes and smells.  The lunch was extra special as we were served two delicious dishes that were spicy. Spicy dishes are not traditional in this area, but are in high humidity areas.  It is believed, that if you can keep your body sweating, it will push out the poisons and keep you healthy.

Following another delicious lunch, we traveled to a villa inside the city of Shanghai, which covered 30 acres. We toured a 400-year-old house that had been converted from a typical house into a garden area by a single family over 28 years.  Multiple families have lived in the villa over time, and in 1950, it was converted into a museum. Inside the yard, several superstitions can be seen in the trees and rock placements inside the walls. Upon entering the front gate, a large rock is in front of the main entrance into the house.  It is placed in this location to deflect wind from going into the house and blowing away the families wealth.  The trees planted in the garden are also used to promote the families wealth.  A combination of gringo and magnolia trees line the inside of the walls.  During the fall season, the gringo trees leaves change to a beautiful golden color which looks like gold, and are believed to bring wealth to the home as they fall from the tree, while the magnolia trees start to bloom beautiful white flowers and look like white jade, also believed to bring wealth to the family.

Students put their Barter Skills to Work

After visiting the gardens, the students walked around the market and were able to purchase gifts and souvenirs. Some students definitely put their bartering skills to the test and really gave the market a run for its money.  One student bartered a vendor down from 450 Yuan to 50 Yuan, for a Rolex Watch.  Students came out of the market with different gifts such as chop sticks, Beats headphones, fancy watches and key chains.  The market that we shopped at used to be the main market in Shanghai and surrounds the garden we previously toured.

Tour Guide Steve is very helpful

During the bus rides, the students gather a lot of information from their tour guide Steve.  While driving, the conversation of cars came up and we learned some cool facts.  China produces almost 95% of their cars due to joint ventures with companies like Volkswagen, Ford and Honda.  The cars that are not produced in China are typically more expensive like Ferrari’s and Rolls-Royce. China started producing their own cars in 1950 and popularity started to grow throughout the residents, but the majority of Chinese cars that populate the streets are foreign cars.  60% of the gas used to fuel the vehicles in China ccomes from imports such as the Middle East, Russia and Australia.  The price of gas in China is roughly $1/Liter, which would equal $4/gallon of gas.  There are only three oil companies in China that produce the remaining 40% of the oil.

No Chop Sticks for this Dinner

We wrapped up the day looking forward to dinner that was being provided by Stora-Enzo, one of the largest wood product companies in the world.  We learned about the Global and Chinese paper market and talked quite a bit about how the Chinese fiber sourcing has been changing over the past 10-15 years, but how the global market is steadily growing in areas like linerboard and hygiene products, but declining steadily in areas like copy paper.  The dinner was very western and we were served forks and knives instead of chopsticks.  After dinner, we went on a boat tour on the Huangpu River and were dazzled by the magnificent light show displayed on the buildings of the Shanghai skyline.  The state pays 2 million Yuan per night, to light the Shanghai Skyline from dusk until 11pm.  It is an amazing view.

by guest blogger Mason Umlauf & Daniel Hardy