1) Never being able to interact with Chinese people.
2) Hating real Chinese food.
3) Chinese people hating me.
4) Squat toilets.
5) Food safety.
6) Washing hands.
7) Having enough socks.
8) The smog.
9) Being forced to eat crazy things.
10) Internet access.
11) Accidentally seriously offending one of our Chinese hosts.
12) Not packing something that I would NEED and not be able to find.
13) Getting some crazy diseases.
Note: this may yet be a concern, so I don't really want to jinx it. Also, Mom please schedule a doctors appointment for when I get back so I can be sure I don't have malaria or yellow fever or something.
Things I probably should have thought about a little more:
1) Bringing more gifts for people.
2) Bringing my cell phone with the character recognition app.
3) Really learning left and right in Chinese.
Note: I struggle with this in English, and my poor Chinese teachers have taught us this again and again. I just seem incapable of remembering which is which.
4) Bringing my tennis shoes so I could play basketball and soccer with the guys at the farm.
5) Learning the numbers of the busses I need to use to get into the city from the farm.
6) Packing one pair of jeans.
7) Packing my medium-ish sized purse.
8) Preparing myself for a million stares and pictures.
9) Making and bringing some business cards.
10) Adding more music to my computer.
11) Packing more than one book that was not a textbook.
12) Not packing the boots, or so many socks and underwear.
13) Mosquitos. Bleh.
And now for pictures! These are hot off the presses from my morning adventure in Old Shanghai and the Former French Concession.
Does this not just scream "Pineapple" to you?
Look at his face! After I took this shot, an elderly Chinese couple starting forcing the poor dog to pose for me. They were then shocked when I spoke to them in Chinese. They were pretty adorable, and I would have taken their picture, but it seemed kind of rude at the moment.
This guy spotted my walking down the street holding a camera and demanded that I take his picture with the dog. He then had to double-check and approve the photo before continuing on his walk.
Old Shanghai is filled with super-cool alleyways, like the kind you used to find all over China.
This taxi driver claimed that he was a movie star, and forced me to take his picture. He then wanted one of his buddies to take a picture of us together, but I managed to get out of that one. The whole gang of them were pretty hilarious.
Some days you just can't tell if it is fog or smog or drizzle that is blocking your view.
If, as you are walking through Old Shanghai, you get a sudden craving for bagels or something, have no fear. Unfortunately they weren't open at 7 AM... so I'm not entirely sure what it was like inside.
Next I stumbled upon the YuYuan gardens, which are the beautiful traditional Chinese gardens right smack in the middle of the city.
And here is a small collection of European tourists. You can tell they are European by their shoes, their accents, and their lack of ginormous cameras.
An actual circle gate!!! I am almost a little ashamed about how excited I got over this.
A small still life was set up for us in one of the buildings. Unfortunately, no one was giving out any tea.
I've seen a lot of stone dragons in the past month and a half... but this guy is definitely the creepiest.
Another circle gate!
The attention to detail in Chinese architecture is amazing. This guy was hanging out on a rather unremarkable corner of a pavilion.
I constantly wonder if the waterfalls are for feng-shui purposes, or are they just to add oxygen to the water so the fish won't die?
Again, an absolutely amazing carving, hidden in an obscure corner. This is also the only dragon I saw in the complex with his teeth and nails painted white.
Just a cute fern hanging out on the side of a rock. Sometimes it's the little things that are the most worth stopping and looking at.
Alright, I think this is a part of the building complex associated with the Shanghai Art Museum in the Former French Concession, but I'm not sure. I spent forever walking around trying to find the base of the building, but I couldn't find it.
Hands down, funniest sign I've seen in Shanghai. Posted outside of a bar in the FFC.
In most Buddhist temples there are signs everywhere telling you not to take pictures, and generally I try to respect that. No one else does, but that's a whole other issue. But in the Jing'An Temple in the middle of Shanghai, there were no signs. NONE. And so I took a couple of pictures.
However, I quickly figured out that this was kind of a weird temple. (Note the ginormous skyscrapers in the background)
I imagine that all of the advertisements surrounding the temple make abandoning all worldly desires rather difficult.
Eventually, I kind of grew sick of the whole complex. This felt much more like a tourist trap that any of the other religious areas I have been to in China. Of all of the visitors pouring in through the gate, only a handful of people at any given time were praying. The monks were nowhere to be found, despite living in what basically amounts to an apartment complex directly behind the building pictured. Children were screaming and running around throwing coins everywhere.
But possibly, what most effected me was that I had visited the City God Temple earlier that morning. That was a real temple. It was pretty much me and the old people getting up to pray. The nuns were running around, getting chores done. Absolutely no photography was allowed, as I was reminded more than a few times, despite the fact that I never made any sign that I was about to take a picture. The benches that visitors kneel on to pray were slightly worn and dented by countless pairs of knees. There was less gold leaf plastered everywhere, and more Buddhas, more Dragon Kings, and a bunch of other deities I can't begin to name.
The Jing'An Temple kind of reflected all of my feelings about Shanghai. It is fantastic; slick, new, shiny, constantly being updated, open to the masses (for a price). But at the same time, it seems fake. This isn't really China, any more than Jing'An is a temple for serious Buddhists. The traditional older buildings are either currently in a state of disrepair, or being actively ripped down by the government and "remade" into slick tourist shops selling fake Chinese trinkets. I walked past far too many of these buildings today, and it is honestly disappointing. Shanghai looks to the future by erecting these mammoth glass and steel towers, but I feel that it is at risk of losing any true sense of its past with these loose interpretations of Chinese tradition.
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