Hello everyone, I only found out this section of the forums existed today and I think this is a perfect opportunity to brag about all the places I've been
First of all, Shanghai. My brother lived there for 3 years and in 2012 we took the opportunity to go and visit him for 2 weeks. From Ireland it was a 13 hour journey stopping over in London. For some reason I had absolutely no jet lag and got stuck in to the holiday straight away. Now, I got a unique look at Shanghai, I wasn't staying in the downtown area of the city which is basically like any other city on earth. I stayed with my brother a 20 minute metro journey away from the city centre in one of the Shanghai neighbour hoods with a westerner population of 1 (my bro). It was very very cheap there too, basically everything was ten times cheaper than their Irish equivalent, which was nice!
Now, westerners tend to have a pretty strong opinion of what China is like. I found it to be a really nice place with really nice people. They were so welcoming and loved us. I walked down the street and felt like a celebrity, people would look at you, yes but in a friendly way. One grandfather, seeing a six foot Irish rugby player coming down the street even when back into his shop to get his grand children just to see.
Shanghai is modern:
It's old:
It's poor:
and rich:
There are other more quirky parts such as the french concession, an area of the city which in the past was given to French traders and very strangely is like any European city you might find:
But of course my favourite parts were the stereotypical Chinese stuff like the temples and statues:
One temple, the Daoist temple of the town got was home to musical monks who all played instruments. This guy was playing jingle bells (I swear, we even looked at the sheet he was playing from and it had jingle bells written on it in English)
And the Buddhist temples with fantastic sculptures of the Buddha
and the Jing'aan Temple which encouraged you to contribute to the temple funds with a game of "throw coins into the giant pot" here is a picture of me doing it (face omitted):
And a bunch of Chinese women in another temple praying with incense:
But the strangest religious experience was when I went to a wedding, one of my brother's friends was getting married and I was invited. I was really excited too. A Chinese wedding? what would it be like? very familiar it would turn out, they were Catholic.
It was so ordinary:
But mundanity in a country on the other side of the world is fascinating in itself and it was definitely worth it!
Of course no trip to China is done until you see a panda, and that is just what we did! In Shanghai Zoo:
Pandas aren't even that big, which surprised me. Only as big as a big dog!
Also common in China are massage parlours which in some cases are synonymous with brothels though I didn't go to any of those! One strange thing which my brother dared me to get was a sucker massage (again, not in a brothel). It's where they light a wick in an air tight cup and put it in your back, supposedly to suck the bad humours out of your body. All it really did was give you a bruise. An average Chinese man will get 8 on his back, but I a rugby player, got 26:
In summary Shanghai is a brilliant place to visit and I highly recommend it. It's a massive, modern city which blends itself in with the old. Go there! In the spirit of blending the old with the new I will leave you with this picture, which perfectly sums the place up:
- Sebidee