I will write this in parts because it is a lot of information and I don't want to write one super long entry. My Chinese tutor, Nancy, and I left for Shanghai Thursday afternoon and arrived around 6PM. We traveled through an enormous city with buildings and lights everywhere, it was a bit overwhelming how big China's largest city was. We started our trip on Nanjing Road, a road famous for having lots of various shops and stores. The road was illuminated by huge neon lights all in Chinese writing. We turned down a small side street on Nanjing road and found a Chinese restaurant to have dinner. I was a bit nervous at the restaurant because the street didn't smell very good and I used their restroom which was filthy. My tutor asked me if I wanted iced beer, which I assumed meant ice in my beer, so I replied no and got a warm beer. A while later we got our food. I had braised pork and it was delicious and practically fell off the bone. After that we had the local Shanghai fish which was good but I get annoyed having to always pick out tiny fish bones while I'm eating. After dinner we went to see the Bund, modern buildings along the river that are famous for being large and illuminated with bright lights at night. We took a boat along the river and I took many pictures of the buildings, but it was a tough for the pictures to do the buildings justice. Later during the boat tour two young Chinese girls, I'm guessing around 15, asked to take a picture with me. It was a self-esteem booster. The tour ended around 10PM and I decided it was time to return to the company dorm to rest for the big day ahead.

We woke early Friday morning, ate breakfast, and left by 8AM. Our first destination was the Financial Tower, China's tallest building, the 3rd tallest building in the world, and the world's tallest walking observation area. We were given a brief introduction into the background of the tower and then led up by elevator. The elevator was very cool and seemed futuristic. It had lights flashing everywhere with beeping sounds and also a gauge that displayed how high up you were traveling. We arrived near the top of the building and took another elevator to reach the top. I felt a bit of vertigo at first at being so high up, but after I got used to the height I could comfortably walk around. The view was very cool and everywhere you looked there was just the city of Shanghai sprawling out as far as the eye could see in all directions (but you really couldn't see that far on account of smog). I took pictures but the pictures once again couldn't do the view justice. There was also a glare off the windows. The floor had panels of glass where you could look down, but you couldn't look straight down because the rest of the building was in the way. I think the CN Tower in Toronto was better because it had a better view and their glass floor was terrifying.

After the Financial Tower we went to the Yu Yuan Market, full of lots of tiny stores full of Chinese gifts to attract tourists. I got the chance to hone my bargaining skills here. Initially when you get there you see how cheap things are and buy things for what you think are cheap. Then after walking around a while you realize that all the shops carry the exact same things so you can bargain harder because you can go somewhere else to buy what you want. I bought lots of paintings there. I kind of overpaid on the first painting, but the next three I bought were a steal which I think made up for it. After a few hours of shopping we had lunch at the market in a cafeteria-style restaurant that had lots of different Chinese foods.