Day 21

As with all of our Sundays, today was another free day.  Different groups of people spent the day doing different things, but most people spent this day hitting up the famous sights of Shanghai.  For me this meant going to see the famous TV Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai.  While I didn’t go up the tower (as it was a little on the expensive side), I heard the view from the top was great.  The two largest buildings in Shanghai (the taller of which is the second tallest building in the world) were close by and as they were less expensive, most people that went up one of the buildings went to one of these.

In between walking through all of these buildings we found this absolutely beautiful little park.  It wasw so nice to see a great patch of green amongst all the grey of the city (I don’t think we saw blue sky the whole time we were there, and while the skyscrapers do have some color variation, mostly they just look grey). 

Another attraction of the city was the Yuen Garden….for those that could find it.  The garden is surrounded by a market with a horde of small shops.  While a few groups were able to find the actual garden, my group became hopelessly lost in the maze of stores.  Not to despair, all turned out well—one member of the group was able to find a suitcase (for all of the goods purchased while here in Asia) and another got a winter coat as a result of our wanderings.  That’s one thing I think everyone has loved about China—a lot of great inexpensive shopping.

And for the exciting part of the day—today we had a birthday!  That’s right, Angie celebrated her 19^th birthday in Shanghai.  For her, there couldn’t have been a more wonderful birthday present.  So, to celebrate, we treated her to an Asian dish called hot pot.  Everyone has a bowl of broth full of spices and herbs boiling on a burner in front of them.  The pot is then used to cook the meal—meat, vegetables, noodles…all kinds of things can be cooked in the hot pot and then eaten.  Happy Birthday Angie!

-Stephanie