How awesome was it for me to have Michi visit me in Shanghai for a few days? Very awesome. I had not seen her since that last day in Wilshire Villa’s parking garage when after everything was packed into her car, we gave each other a quick hug and a quick goodbye. For those of you who don’t know, I have known Michelle all through my time at UCLA; we both lived on the same floor our first year and then again our second year. Then we were roommates our third and fourth years of college when we moved out to the apartments with some friends. She is probably the person who knows me best from UCLA.
The long weekend of hanging out with Michi started Thursday late afternoon (Dec. 17) when I picked her up at the Maglev in Shanghai. This was my way of saving money and having her meet me half way instead of me having to make a roundtrip taxi ride from Puxi to Pudong Airport. I arrived a bit early so I sat on the freezing bench in the freezing air of the freezing platform. It was a freezing day. Michi saw me before I saw her and calls my name out; I can’t believe she is only wearing a t-shirt and jeans!
The time she spent in Shanghai was mainly spent eating and touristy things. The trend seemed to be that it would take us forever to get out the door every morning. We usually made it out in time for an early lunch. We first made a shopping trip so that she could buy better walking shoes. We spent one day doing the touristy things of Shanghai. We went over to Lujiazui to see the Pearl Tower and to go up the Shanghai World Financial Center building - currently the third tallest building in the world (according to wiki). It’s the one that many of us think looks like a ‘bottle-opener’. After wandering about Lujiazui for a bit and grabbing a late lunch at Din Tai Fung, we eventually made it to the Riverside Promenade so that we could get a look across the river to the Bund on the Puxi side. We are standing around in the freezing cold, next to the freezing cold river when
THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPENED!
A few people run past us. The first thing that runs through my mind was, “oh no, they’re trying to steal my purse!” And then we saw the camera crew. Second thought that runs through my mind, “ITS THE AMAZING RACE!” Well, that was my theory at least. I’ve always thought it would be pretty cool if I came across the Amazing Race during my time abroad. Michelle and I start running after them and ask them what they were filming for and the guy answers with the two coolest words, “Amazing Race.”
OH. MY. GOODNESS. At this point I couldn’t believe what was happening before my eyes. Ultimately, we found the pit stop for this leg of the race and waited around long enough to:
1. see two teams check in. Including the last team to arrive. I have no idea whether it was a non-elimination leg or not though
2. see one of the world’s tallest men. He’s a Chinese man and quite tall. Though I heard soon after that he just recently lost his title to someone else. He needed walking canes to help him stand though.
3. see the production crew of The Amazing Race.
4. see Phil, the host.
5. say “hi, I love this show” and get a photo with Phil.
The crew in charge of keeping the area clear of bystanders was nice enough to let Michi and I stand around. I believe they let us because they could tell we weren’t locals from our American accents and probably figured we could do no harm. Truth is, some Chinese locals will treat you differently once they know you’re a foreigner ... even if we are ethnically Chinese.
After that cold, amazing experience, Michi and I headed across the Huangpu River back to Puxi where we grabbed some dinner and took a walk down Nanjing Road. It’s just a shopping street but at night it’s all lit up and you can people watch. Weather: still cold.
The next day, (weather: still cold) we took the train out for a day trip to Hangzhou. There was no real itinerary since I figured that we would just spend the day walking around West Lake and visit some of the tourist attractions. As we exited the train station and I was trying to remember which bus I took with Song and her family when we visited Hangzhou last June, a Chinese woman behind me suddenly starts talking to me and reassures me that “this” bus would take us out to West Lake. She kept talking to us even on the bus and started telling me where we should go for fun. At this point, Michi and I were questioning whether she was trying to scam us or was just a genuinely nice person. We decided to give it a try and followed the itinerary she wrote down for us. Along the way, another woman also told us that if we followed her we would end up at the first place. The bus took us past the lake and into the hills -- we were certainly off the beaten trail now. It turned out to be fine because we ended up in the tea leaf hills. We followed a trail that started in a village (fave part: the chicken and dark carcasses hanging out to dry) and were told it would end at a waterfall. We hoped for the best and off we went wandering along a trail and bumping into other random walkers every so often. The funny thing was other people seemed a little confused as well because would ask “which direction did you guys come from?” “What is over there?” etc etc. We kept walking until we found the waterfall, took some pictures and then started wandering ... “how do we get out of this area now?” Luckily, there were some private cars for hire that would take us down the hill to the nearby bus station. And from there we made our way back to the lake for a late lunch and some last glimpses of the lake. After a bit of an inconvenience with taxis and public buses (again, another woman helped us out by telling us to follow her to the bus stop), we made our way back to the train station and back to Shanghai.
Michi’s final day in Shanghai (weather: still cold) was spent at Yu Garden. The original plan was to visit Xintiandi and the French Concession, but when I told her that Yu Garden was one of the main things tourists do in Shanghai, we figured that she should go so that she could say she had been there. As typical with most Yu Garden visits, we never went to the actual garden (as the saying goes, you see one Chinese garden, you’ve seen them all, haha) and instead we spent a lot of time looking for souvenirs for her to buy for people back home. It was actually a lot of fun looking at “random crap” to buy.
And so, Michi’s long weekend in Shanghai ended and it was time for her to head back to Hong Kong for the rest of her trip. She left really early Tuesday morning and again the goodbye felt a bit rushed. There was no long tearful farewell, just another goodbye like we would see each other again next week.
me: When will we see each other again?
her: I’ll see you back in the States. [pause] You better come back!
You know, it’s a good feeling when you can pick up right where you left off with friends. It was hard to believe that more than a year had passed since UCLA because we were back to talking and laughing like old times.
The first picture I took out of my bedroom widow. Excuse my poor camera skills, but if you squint you can see SNOW!
I caught some snow with my mittens. My hands were getting really cold as I stuck them out the window to take pictures.
