Shanghai on Life

So this is it! Today is my last day in Shanghai. Everything is packed, about to go get some dinner with Danny Boy and I’ll be on a flight to Bangkok early tomorrow morning. The last few weeks have been pretty busy and well, pretty blog-less as well I suppose.

I had a great visit with Steph, Mom and Auntie Rabina. I guess my favourite moment had to be at Qipu Lu…a very busy shopping district in Shanghai. After having numerous taxis stolen right from under us (the Shanghainese are ruthless when it comes to queue jumping and you-were-there-first general courtesies), I told the ladies to sharpen their elbows. Before you could blink Auntie Rabina was booking it down the street shoulder-to-shoulder with a small pack of Chinese girls running for an approaching cab. She peeled them off those door handles, waved to us and jumped in – I couldn’t have been prouder! Once in the cab, the driver looked at me with a huge grin on his face, laughing and saying “foreigners! foreigners!” giving the thumbs up and even taking his hands off the wheel for a quick impression of us all running for his cab. We had an excellent visit, filled with lots of shopping, eating, site seeing, massages and maybe a few too many cocktails in the hotel room ;) .

On the 25th I said goodbye to the ladies and took the night train up to Beijing along with Sandra and her friend Melanie to meet up with Jen and Cody. We took the night train (14 hours) and that was pretty fun. We were stared at a lot, got to hear a lot of snoring and have a few wind-tunnel-esque bathroom experiences, but for the price it was a steal of a journey! In all seriousness though it really wasn’t so bad. As dutiful tourists in Beijing we hit the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, plus the old AND new summer palace – in three days! Phew! We were happy to return to the warmer Shanghai weather and I have since shown them the what I consider the highlights (again, mostly eating, shopping and massages, with a couple of cultural things thrown in for good measure).

Peppered between visitors have been some tearful goodbyes with Simon, Sandra and Christian, not to mention loads of goodbyes to other friends who have slowly trickled out of Shanghai. Even though this is exchange round 2, I still find myself surprised at the intensity friendships can build in these short-term situations. I am missing my three Germans quite a lot and have been subjecting poor Jen and Cody to countless numbers of nostalgic had-to-be-there stories about our adventures in China. I am already obsessing over when I can make it to Germany next…tentative plans: German Karneval post graduation :D.

So tomorrow is Bangkok where Cody, Jen and I will set out on a two month adventure around South East Asia. Tentatively on the list is Thailand (not so tentative :D), Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but we might not make it to all, or maybe even make it further depending on where the wind blows us. I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen with this little blog as I don’t know what kind of Internet access we’ll have along the way or what my laziness levels are going to be, but I would have the desire to keep posting so we’ll see what happens.

For those of you who are particularly dedicated  (or particularly worried in the case of my mama), feel free to check out Cody’s blog at codyinasia.ca…he’s a bit of a better and more regular blogger than me (at least so far!).

Hope you’re all well at home, until next time!!