The Great Wall of China: More Like The Spectacular Wall AM I RIGHT

Whenever I talk about Shanghai, I sound like Stefon. “China’s hottest city is…Shanghai. It has everything – street misters, yogurt jars, film noir, unidentifiable meat on sticks, toon bags – it’s that thing where they stuff a handful of toon into an edible sac and you try to eat the whole thing without choking.” And I mean ‘hottest city’ in all the possible ways. Shanghai was so cool and fancy and swanky, well, most of it. It had an incredible skyline that we could sometimes see through the smog, and the fanciest luxury stores and air conditioned malls EVERYWHERE. And, also, it was the hottest I’ve ever been. In fact, Shanghai was experiencing a heat wave of temperatures the highest they’ve been there in 140 years – just in time for us! It was rough. But, fortunately, the city has so much to offer that it was able to break through our sweat-fueled crankiness and impress us. Screw the Ozdust Ballroom; Shanghai is China’s most swankified place in town. 

Because of all the big buildings, the excited commotion of a finance city, all the busy people, and all the English spoken, we immediately felt like we were in London. Out of everywhere we’ve been in the past two months, Shanghai is for sure the most Londrish. It was nice to feel a little at home. It was sort of welcoming! Like a big sweaty pollution-filled hug from people who smell extra terrible from the heat. Speaking of that heat, the over-100-degrees-Fahrenheit-every-day heat with high humidity so I look like Monica in Barbados just permanently now, it was rough. Luckily, like most big Asian cities, there are malls EVERYWHERE. I know the western among you are like ugh malls are trash. Yeah maybe in America, but in Asia? They have a very important purpose, and that is for respite from excruciating heat. Air-conditioned, bubble tea filled respite. Yes, there are malls in Shanghai, like in Beijing and Bangkok, seemingly on every corner, and we needed to go into every single one for a break. We’d struggle to walk a block while drinking a gallon of water, and then stop in the AC and find bubble tea (I’m obsessed). Then we’d struggle through the next block and go into the next mall to find another water bottle. Lather rinse repeat. 

Shanghai was ready for this heat though, well, thanks to Pepsi, because as we started our walk down The Bund from our hotel, we passed the first item on the Stefon list:

WATER MISTERS! The photo didn’t capture it, but the top section is shooting out mist to cool off those walking by. Such a great idea! 

Our first order of business was indeed walking down The Bund, the famous river-adjacent street that was once the city’s Wall Street, where all the banks had grand historic buildings and is now filled with luxury brand stores. The water in the few convenience stores on the Bund is COSTLY, which says a great deal at least to me. One side of the Bund houses all the historic buildings, most of which have plaques sharing when in the grand old times this or that bank set up shop in what is now a fancy hotel or a Gucci. The other side is the Huangpu river and the view shared above, the famous skyline of Pudong, which has now taken over as the Wall Street-y section. 

We decided after enough heatstroke-walking to get on the ferry to cross the river and go check out Pudong. A ferry ride seems like an appropriate early activity to see more of a city! There are of course expensive tourist boats that will take you cruising along the river, but, here’s a tip, if you just want to hop over to the other side of the  city, there’s a regular commuter ferry that takes like 15 minutes and costs only 2 RMB! That’s like a quarter! Cheapest transportation I’ve ever encountered. I love loved the warning sign outside the non-tourist (but still fine for tourists to take) ferry. 

For 2 yuan, it was as much tourist sightseeing as I needed! The windows were pretty grimy so the pictures of the city from the boat are blurry, but hey, it was fine. We got there. 

We decided to lose all our street cred from taking the commuter ferry and instead become full-on tourists by visiting the Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China and, at least in my opinion, the tallest building in the world. Why in my opinion, you are probably wondering? At 121 stories and 632 meters tall, the Shanghai Tower comes in second in the world rankings only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. BUT, like most megatall buildings, the top of the Burj, the tip of its height, narrows into a spire! SPIRES DON’T COUNT FOR ME. It’s SO cheating to build a tall building and then after you build actually usable space to go wait but I wanna win the competition, so here’s a 100 foot long metal rod to increase my numbers. DISQUALIFIED. The Shanghai Tower actually has the highest occupied floor in the world, which is way more impressive to me than all these buildings counting the height of their antennae and thin little completely unoccupied towers and stuff. No dice, Burjess Meredith! 

How cool is this building? The whole body of it twists and turns in a corkscrew, which is so impressive. This shape actually helps save $58 million USD in construction costs because it reduces wind loads, whatever the crap that means. Also, using all the glass (the entire outer skin is glass) saves energy costs because it allows in so much sunlight. It was designed by a US architecture firm. Good job America! I love that the skyscraper next to it looks like a baby in comparison. Tickets up to the observation deck are very expensive, if I recall correctly 180 RMB each, so about $25, which is normal for such a sight in the USA but like the most expensive activity in months for us! We wavered for a minute on whether to get them, but considering this is like A Big Deal and supposably totally worth it, we went for it and I’m so glad we did! I usually get so scared of heights (I almost passed out at the Sear’s Tower (I refuse to change the name) when I stood on the glass floor) but I felt very safe in this one. Oh also, you can pay extra to get in through the Fast Track line. Do that at Disneyworld or whatever. Don’t do it here. We went at like 2pm right in the middle of the busiest tourist season (July-August) and no one was in front of us in the regular line. 

Not only does the Shanghai Tower have the highest occupied floor in the world, but it also has the fastest elevator in the world, designed by Mitsubishi, and the world’s tallest single-lift elevator. I don’t know how they are different, but they are. ALSO, most importantly for tourists, it has the world’s highest skydeck, or observation deck! Amazingggg. 

That elevator is NO JOKE. Before I even realized we were moving, I noticed the screen and saw we were already at Floor 60. You don’t feel ANYTHING. Then I blinked and we went another 50 floors in an INSTANT. Now that is Japanese brilliance. 

Once we got off the elevator at the observation deck, we were struck by the brightness and cleanliness of the big, bright space. We were so excited that we had such a sunny day for our viewing pleasure, and we made our way towards the big glass windows encircling the whole space aaaaand saw that we were oh yeah still in China and it was all smog all the time. 

I’m picking the very best of our pictures to share, because some of the sides were just full on fogginess. I wasn’t upset though! It’s not like we had bad luck that day, that’s just how it is! And we still got to see a good amount, and it was so cool. It’s just, you know, Shanghai abruptly ends! Shrug emoji! 

From one side, you look straight down into the bottle-opener section of Shanghai’s other famous megatall observation tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center. The tickets to go to that building’s observation deck cost the same as the tickets for the Shanghai Tower, which seems silly considering how much higher, and cooler, it is from the Tower. I mean not to crap on the Financial Center, I’m sure you are very important, but if you are going to go up one Shanghai building, do the big one, right? 

Around the bend of the observation deck, you run into a set of stairs going up to ANOTHER floor of observing! We kept getting higher! I’m king of the world! 

We were also super hungry – we hadn’t eaten all day because HEAT but now it was like 4pm. Luckily, because this is Shanghai, the bottom floors of the Tower composed a retail space with lots of food court spaces. They even had a Bassett’s ice cream cart, straight out of the Northeast USA! I found a ready-made salad place that I didn’t realize wouldn’t make new ones, so when I asked for the vegetarian one with no egg, they just took the egg out of the container. Lol. Oh well, roll with the things like this that happen while traveling, and give the parts that were touching the egg to the husband.

 It was a really good salad! Full of purple sweet potato and quinoa and pumpkin and falafel-pretenders and lettuce! I was so excited to have a good salad since we had just gotten off a train that very morning and travel makes me crave lettuce and vegetables.

Oh, side note, that train, from Beijing to Shanghai! I didn’t write a diary entry because it was just midnight to 8am. It was the fanciest train since St. Petersburg, very nice and clean, not smoky, and completely different from the other Chinese trains. They had slippers for everyone in plastic wrap! Each bed had a TV on the wall! If you book Chinese trains, try to get the G trains! (I think this is our only G, so sad.) So nice! BUT. But. We had the beds that were very first in our carriage, along the wall next to the door of the car. And for some reason, that means that the bones of the train, whatever fills the walls on those things, continued under our beds. So we didn’t have storage! There was nothing under my bottom bunk but like metal! So infuriating, we were the people with the most luggage on board! Luckily, the other people in our cabin didn’t have much so we stored under their beds. Not so luckily, one of those people had a child. See, in China, there are no laws, and so people do not buy seats or beds on trains for their children. (Oh is there a doozy of a story in this fashion coming soon.) So instead of sharing with two other people, we were sharing with three. (We also heard horror stories about how Chinese couples often don’t buy two beds but will share one tiny bed, which is much worse and super inconsiderate to force a whole nother adult into a train compartment.)  But the young man who was in the other bed was NOT excited to be forced to sleep with a baby, so when he realized that, he peaced out! I guess he got the conductor to find him a new spot because we didn’t see him again. The baby was fine though. Cute! He made some noise in the night but like, so do I. That’s all I have to say about that. 

 I’m going to do a separate food post for Shanghai, but I’m sharing the Tower food court salad because it’s part of that sight and just makes sense. Guess what else that food court had? BUBBLE TEA! My favorite thing to drink after water! Weirdly, Shanghai..ians favorite drink is neither of those. Instead, you will see literally every single Chinese person on the street – in this heat – drinking little pots of white yogurt with a straw. Usually room temperature. SO GROSS. IT’S HOT OUT AND YOU’RE DRINKING YOGURT? MILK IS A BAD CHOICE! The yogurt pots are on display in every single food cart and shop window you pass all over town. It’s so weird. 

Another day, we went to the Shanghai Museum, which our guide book highly recommended. The book said you could spend a whole day there, or at least a half day, which sounds like my nightmare and I was like hellll nooo but then I remembered that my husband likes to see everything in a museum so we were indeed there for an ungodly amount of time. Luckily, it was pretty interesting. There’s a bronze gallery, a sculpture gallery, a calligraphy gallery, a traditional furniture gallery, a coin gallery, a ceramics gallery, and more over four floors. Best of all, it pulls a London and is free! You have to wait in a long security line though to get in, and in the heat it was brutal. But, like malls, I learned that the best thing about museums (besides learning, I guessss) is that it’s a break from the heat! Hooray for air conditioning. Actually, the Shanghai museum was SO cold that I had to put a long sleeve shirt on! All this constant variation between the intolerable heat and the frigidness of air con is going to give me hypothermia. 

Hilariously, my favorite section of this museum covering so much of Chinese culture and history was…the special exhibit sent from Hungary on Princess Sissy. Sorrynotsorry.

I also enjoyed some of the thousands-of-years-old Buddhist sculpture findings, like this cool slab. 

Getting to the museum is a bit frustrating because of police barricades all over People’s Square. You can’t just find the museum and head towards it. You get into the squarea around it by finding the correct underpass tunnel instead of just, like, walking above ground. Oh China. It was so annoying in this brutal heat to have to do so much extra walking but it was a very nice area, with big parks and nice views and trees and, all over Shanghai and actually most of China, recycling and garbage bins! 

The coolest part of Shanghai (not temperature cool…it was never not sweltering, even in the middle of the night) was walking along the Bund at night and seeing the cool skyline of Pudong all lit up in its bright neon. It’s always incredibly crowded – 25 million people just living there, guys, not even counting visitors – but it’s worth it to enjoy the view. 

We got to enjoy this view every night because our hotel was at the top of the Bund. We chose the Astor House Hotel because it is an important old historic building with lots of interesting history in its ballrooms and staircases. However, the oldness comes through, and it’s very clear that it was a luxury place one day, but one day long ago. The room was beautiful and comfortable and clean, but the hotel itself shows its age and is now very much a hotel primarily for domestic Chinese travelers, not international visitors. This was evident by the fact that, despite ostensibly speaking English, the hotel staff was impossible to communicate with. It was very frustrating. Incredibly, in our next stop, Nanxun, we stayed in a lovely boutique hotel where not one person in the whole town spoke English, let alone in our hotel, yet communicating solely via Google translate went much more smoothly and professionally than our attempts with the Astor House staff – which should not be the case for a place pretending to be a top hotel. Most of the time, every staff member on the floor had a badge that read ‘Trainee’, and they had no idea what they were doing. The lobby was chaos 100% of the time. Worst of all, the lobby had a grand cafe seating area that was very nice – but you couldn’t sit there unless you were ordering something. In the lobby! The only other seats for paying guests were just wooden chairs in a far corner by the front door, with no table or anything. Shame! Thank goodness we didn’t pay as much as the book says it costs. It wasn’t that bad for the price. 

​But the location was good, because it led us through the Bund all the time. One night on our walk home, we stopped at the other historic old hotel, the Fairmount Peace Hotel, which really has that 1930s Shanghai feel, that film noirishness, complete with a hallway of movie posters with all the movies about that era, including a family favorite: 

Every night, the Fairmount has live jazz, but we didn’t realize that cover charge was exorbitant, so we left and went to the other live jazz show at the Peninsula Hotel, which just charges you for drinks and seemed just as good. They did the theme song from Coupling and I was soo excited I was singing along without realizing! I had these weird cranberry soda, white chocolate (sugar syrup), and black pepper (I know!) concoction that was really good! 

As for other entertainment, I was gung-ho on seeing some Shanghai Acrobats, which I knew were special and unique and a must-see in Shanghai. The most recommended theatre for an acrobatic show was the Shanghai Centre Theatre, at the Shanghai Centre on West Nanjing Road. Tickets were expensive, like $40 or more, but we figured it would be worth it for some flying through the air with the greatest of ease and what not! But actually, I can’t recommend this show at all. It’s the biggest, most well known one, but as such it caters to tourists, and to the lowest common denominator involved, so it was dumbed down quite a bit and had like, 2 acts out of 8 or 9 that were actually strong acrobatics. Maybe 8 minutes of the almost two hour show was actually the kind of amazing physicality I wanted to see. The rest included a guy using one of those toys where you like hold a stick between two other sticks? That people do like on street corners? Another was a juggler. I mean it was impressive juggling but it was still juggling, and I didn’t pay for that. Another featured men throwing heavy vases and catching them with their ankle-crooks or necks or the tops of their heads, which the audience loooved and yes is impressive but again IS NOT ACROBATICS. The worst though, the thing that made me furious, was the magician. His main schtick? Turning everything into doves. He had five live doves hidden on him for that routine, and I think we all know what happens to doves in stupid shitty magic acts like that. I’m furious still and I have my strongly worded email to the theatre company ready to go if I can find out how to contact them. 

But those two actual acrobatic acts were indeed amazing. One was two men doing a partner routine full of handstands on top of each other that were mind-blowing enough but that culminated with one holding the other just by the head, just with his hand. I mean. HOW. The other impressive one was a woman and man doing a very sexually charged routine on a pole, which was hilarious because 90% of the audience was children, but it was like a ballet, clearly telling a story and powerfully so. They did a lot of that ahhh-I’m-slipping-down-the-pole-I’m-gonna-crash-into-the-ground-JUST-KIDDING-I-STOPPED-MYSELF-WITH-MY-QUADS-AN-INCH-ABOVE-GROUND stuff. So I’m really glad I got to see those two amazing bits. I just wish the whole show was that and not stupid touristy drivel. 

Speaking of stupid touristy drivel, we were seated next to an older New Zealand man and we chatted for a little before the show started. He asked us how we ended up here, and I proceeded to share every last detail about our trip – ‘we live in London and we flew to Helsinki and we took the Trans Mongolian train route through Russia and saw a lot of Russia and Siberia then we toured Mongolia and then we ended that train route in Beijing and we saw Beijing and now we’re in Shanghai also I had a UTI and diarrhea in Mongolia and my favorite thing is Broadway and puppies and I really love puppies and I really need to wash my hair tonight.’ Okay I didn’t say all of that stuff but it sure felt like it when I finished talking about our route, and his response was, “I meant how did you choose to see this show.” 

I died, I am dead now. 

The best part about the show was not even those two good bits though. It was the theatre’s location in the fancy pants Centre that we lovingly referred to as Expat Centre. It had EVERYTHING you could possibly want as an expat living in Shanghai, and I think that’s where lots of them do indeed live. First of all, the main part of the Centre is not the theatre, but is the giant Ritz Carlton Hotel – a beautiful fancy hotel (I used their bathroom of course) but it also has two residence blocks attached! Can you imagine being an expat in Shanghai and living in the Ritz residence building? Dayummm son! Okay, so not only is there that, but in the basement of the whole place is a fancy pants supermarket with all kinds of imported recognizable goods, and a Godiva ice cream stand. In the market. And a lot of fresh fruit and even green juice! Then, on one side of the Centre, is a Starbucks, several legit tea shops and juice stands, many fancy Chinese restaurants, many casual and good-looking Chinese and non-Chinese restaurants, a paella cafe, A VEGAN RESTAURANT (next post), an HSBC (our bank), a Parkway Health Clinic – the expat-focused medical practice I went to in Beijing!, a Parkway Health DENTAL Clinic, a massage parlor, a gym, literally everything you could want. If I lived there I would never leave the complex. I’d never have to! It was hilarious. Every corner we turned we’d find something else that would make us thing we were in London. 

Not too far in the grand scheme of things (literally and figuratively) from Expat Centre was Xintiandi, an outdoor shopping complex that is suuper fancy. It’s like Rodeo Drive or something, a totally Westernized outdoor mall sort of thing but housed in beautiful old buildings reminiscent of Shanghai’s past. It’s pedestrianized as well as totally Westernized, with craft beer gardens on every corner, all the recognizable shops, Starbucks on every block as is the custom in China, and a complex-wide wifi (that I think only works on Chinese numbers, like most public networks here (and in Russia) that require you to put in a phone number to connect. Not a fan!). We didn’t spend too much time there since we weren’t shopping, and once you see the cool juxtaposition of modern brand shops being house in historic buildings, you get the point, but still it was cool to see. My favorite part is that pets are allowed, but as you can see in the picture above, they MUST be in carriages! What! Not even like, oh if your pet gets tired here’s a baby carriage for them. No, they MUST be in baby carriages. Oh China! 

So, we really enjoyed our time in Shanghai overall, despite the heat, though we didn’t do that much in our limited time. We both agreed that we would happily (and relatively easily) return here from London in the future, if for no other reason than the food. The food was amaaazing. That’s the next post! You’ll have to read that one to find out what toon bags are! 

     Before I went to Myanmar, better known as Burma, last year, my knowledge of the military-ruled country came courtesy of J. Peterman on Seinfeld. I assumed that when I arrived, I’d be able to buy melons off of boys’ motorbikes. While this was essentially true, I also learned so much about this very problematic yet alluring country, and had the time of my life. 
     First off: My boyfriend and I consider ourselves intrepid travelers and we like to plan everything ourselves in the most authentic way possible. However, all of our initial research about traveling in Burma recommended having a private company book everything in advance in order to avoid common problems with corruption and bribery. Considering how difficult the decision to actually go to Burma was, since we’d be supporting the horrible government with at least some of our dollars, we had the great people at Santa Maria Travels & Tours book our hotels, internal flights, and activities. Using a company like Santa Maria helps ensure that you stay in privately owned hotels, rather than state-owned, so a small percentage of your money would go to the government, rather than all of it. Having contacts in the country to help us should problems arise (and arise they did) definitely helped make this challenging trip a bit more manageable. (Also, what finally convinced me to take this trip? That President Obama had decided to go there, arriving just when we were leaving. Also, Anthony Bourdain came around then too.)
      Immediately upon landing in Yangon (Rangoon), our first guide met us and took us to Shwedagon Paya, the most famous pagoda in Myanmar. (Ok, you are correct that I keep switching between Myanmar and Burma. Myanmar is the official name, changed by the military government in 1989, but many people we met were not happy about that. So I’m going to go with whatever sounds best in each sentence.) The most sacred pagoda for the Burmese Buddhist people, Shwedagon Paya is also the grandest and most famous. 

     Next, we went to Sule Pagoda, located in downtown Yangon. It was suspposedly built before Shwedagon Paya, and is 2500 years old. To reach it, no matter your mode of transport, you have to risk your life and cross the most insane intersection in the eastern hemisphere. So scary! 

    We visited a few other pagodas in Yangon, and then we finally ate! I didn’t have much trouble finding vegan options in this Buddhist country: The main way of eating is a varied spread of curries, and you can just request the vegetarian curries. There are also salads served, but don’t eat raw vegetables or fruit here that you can’t peel! Danger! (Take it from me and my few days wasted from what I thought was cholera. I knowwww.) Our first meal was soupy noodle bowls made in 2 minutes on the street. Street food is the best, right? It was so good. 

    Most of the streets are covered with vendors of all sorts, but mainly food. We tried as much as we could, and most of it was good (all of it was interesting!). 

     Our time in Yangon/Rangoon was eye-opening and really special. It was a great introduction to and preparation for the rest of the country. However, nothing could prepare us for our second stop of our journey – one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, Bagan, Burma. 

Bagan is an unbelievably special place. If you are coming to this part of the world, you need to go to Bagan. Oh, about traveling within the country: You can get around by train and bus, but flying is the way to go. Trains and buses can sometimes take days, seriously, because of frequent delays, so air travel is the most common form. The flights are short from town to town (our longest was probably an hour), and they are usually on time. However…they are frightening. I was white-knuckling it during each of four or five flights we took. Luckily, we safely arrived each time. I don’t want to dissuade you from flying (you do not want to miss so much time with ground travel), but you should be prepared for these bucket-jumpers. 
     The main thing to do in Bagan is visit some of the beautiful red brick pagodas pictured above. (I won’t be sharing many pictures of the insides and the Buddhas – it’s possibly sacrilege.) We went in so many, by the end of the first day I was begging to never see another pagoda in my life. However, the next morning changed everything…

    If you are going to Burma, you MUST go to Bagan, and you MUST take a hot-air balloon ride with Balloons Over Bagan, a company run by an Englishman named Lee. This was the most incredible experience, and you will not find any better view that this! This is the #1 reason I want to return to Burma. (It didn’t hurt that I was in the balloon with Lee! Such luck!) I’m going to share a crap load of pictures with you, because I can’t do justice to this experience with words.

    The markets all throughout Burma were also incredible. In Bagan, we saw the most varied types of produce, nuts, and even tofu for sale. The main thing they sell to tourists are the longyis, the type of garment most people wear (like kilts, or sarongs). 

     Bagan is a convenient jumping off point for visiting Mount Popa, a beautiful volcano (inactive, I hope) with a monastery atop it. It’s a few hours drive from Bagan, and then a really long climb to the top. Bear it mind that the climb is done barefoot, as you cannot enter any pagoda or sacred space in shoes. The walk was covered with monkey poop thanks to the guys at left and their friends. It was worth the trouble though! Cutes! But don’t touch them! Diseases!  
    On the walk up, there are also people (mostly children) selling all kinds of things, from longyis and food to the same old tourist souvenirs being sold outside every pagoda. (It takes something away from the experience, to encounter the throngs of impoverished children everywhere you go and not be able to really help them.) 

     One of the coolest things about Mount Popa? At the top, they have little plaques commemorating all of the donors to the pagoda. Imagine my delight when I saw one for Burma Super Star, the great Burmese restaurant in San Francisco! So fun! 

All in all, Bagan was just an incredible experience. We stayed in a bungaloo at the Kumudara Hotel, which as far as I can remember was the best we stayed in in all of Burma. I definitely recommend it – it had a pool! And, check out the view beyond the pool below. It’s amazing. Stay tuned for posts on the rest of my journey through Burma!