Life As Usual in Shanghai

Yesterday I met up with Spencer and we went to the YuYuan Garden (City Temple). I had already been there last year but I figured I would tag along anyways. We went with two other people from his language school, Kristen and Will. Will is a cool guy who just got his MBA from Carnegie-Melon and is moving to NYC to work for a financial research services company. We talked for a while and had a good conversation about ibanking. I also met two cool people my age at the hostel. One guy named Grant and a girl named Sophie who is a senior at Columbia in NYC. They are on a program to study ocean science with the NSF and are getting to tour China on the program’s paycheck.

Yesterday I had some really good Korean food in People’s Square. Since my trip last summer I’ve been in love with Korean food and prefer it to Chinese! I think Korean food is overall healthier (more vegetables and less oily, more lean meat without the skin) and it is usually spicy.

For breakfast today I went to this really local (if you know what I mean) restaurant. There were a ton of people eating there (including the police which is a good sign) and the lady was cooking a humongous wok of rice outside. Rice is way better in China than in the US, you can actually taste a dramatic difference. They gave me way more than I could eat for 90 cents. I’ll probably eat at this place again before I leave.

The hostel I am at is really close to People’s Square which is now my favorite area of the city (way more interesting than the Bund or Pudong IMO). There’s a cool exhibit at the Shangai Museum about the ancient olympics, might go see that or to a Chinese movie called Kung Fu Hip-Hop. I am also going to try and go to the Qipu Market to get some counterfeit designer goods, because I’m worried when I get to Beijing the government will shut down these markets in prep for the Olympics.

Tonight Spencer and I are going to celebrate the 4th at the Bund Brewery where it’s $14 for all you can drink beer of different varieties brewed right at the place. I love my country!

Tomorrow I fly two hours to Xi’an and my friend Mengmeng has like 20 things planned for us to do, I’ll keep you guys updated!

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 12:49 am and is filed under Summer 2008, Shanghai, China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.