Shanghai is a bustling and modern city with gorgeous cityscapes, parks, and museums. For some reason I thought it was going to be less developed and unpleasant – but I was wrong. The city is clean, easy to get around, and has lot of cool sights!

The famous cityscape of Shanghai, the Bund, is gorgeous at nighttime. Another place not to miss is the Shanghai Museum. There are artifacts and artwork from the many Chinese dynasties. My favorite collections are the ceramics and jade. So cool!

There are many very nice parks in the city to chill and relax. At one of the main parks in Shanghai you can visit the Shanghai Marriage Market. This is where the parents of unmarried children go and try to find prospects for their kids. It’s quite fascinating – you can see photos and stats such as height, occupation, age, etc. It’s like an online dating profile filled out by your parents. You’ll see one photo of this below.

One recommendation for food – all over the city you will find self-serve soup restaurants. You get a bowl and add whatever you want: meats, veggies, noodles, spices, etc. You then give it to the kitchen staff and they prepare it for you. It is extremely tasty and quite cheap. Watch out though, one time I thought I’d selected pork, but it ended up being stomach. Haha, live and learn!

I really enjoyed my time in Shanghai. Now off northwest to Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors!

Cheers, Shawn

Photos by Jon Lang

Asia Trip – Early 2016

P.S. – In the last post I mentioned that we were going to take a 20 hour train ride to Shanghai. This ride went very well, and was quite comfortable. We had a sleeper, which is a bunk bed stacked 3 high. Each compartment had 2 sets of bunk beds, so there were 6 of us. Jon and I shared it with a local family, who were quite curious about who we were. Even though we couldn’t converse due to the language difference, they were very friendly and good travel companions. We had a good night’s rest, and were well fed with the food cart that went by every couple of hours during the daytime. Even though it was long, the train experience was very good!