Surfin' the Maglev

So I arrived in Shanghai on a weekday morning in the middle of December, wrapped in the warmest clothes I possessed in Bangladesh. While the Bangladeshis walk outside in December with full winter jackets, I was walking around in t-shirts; it was only 70˚F! But China actually has winters. I don't think it was any worse than a normal winter in the U.S., but oh my gosh, my body was not prepared.

I developed a cold within the first couple of days in China, and it never really went away for the next two and a half weeks. My nose started running, and it soon dawned on me that I would be requiring a constant supply of tissues. I wasn't looking forward to managing my tissue supply while traveling, but I managed to find tissues at just about any place I could purchase food or other small consumer goods. Simultaneously, I was experiencing a serious lack of napkin supply at many of the smaller, mom-and-pop food operations. I therefore suspect that the tables of the napkin burden have for some reason been reversed, and the responsibility for providing napkins in China falls flatly on the consumer, not the restaurant. I welcome all comments and suggestions regarding the validity of my idle speculation. I also applaud Chinese businesses for (probably unintentionally) saving paper.

Before I got a cold, though, I landed in Pudong Airport in Shanghai, where I had the chance to ride the Maglev train into the heart of Pudong. I failed to realized that this stood for "Magnetic Levitation Train" until the train left the station and never stopped accelerating for 7 or 8 minutes. Somewhere around 4 or 5 minutes I began to suspect that this was not a normal train. Each car in the train has an LED panel in the front proudly displaying the current speed, which maxed out at around 420 kilometers per hour. I think it's safe to assume that the speedometer is just for show, but I firmly believe that people who build Magnetic Levitating transportation devices should also be allowed the right to build vanity LED panels.

The train arrived in the middle of Pudong, and I managed to meet up with David and Nate (!!!) who were hanging around while Ian was working. Have I explained the layout of Shanghai yet? Well, most of the older parts of Shanghai are on the West side of the Huangpu river, where British colonials set up camp and helped develop Shanghai into one of the biggest business cities in China. In the last one hundred years, Pudong, on the East side of the Huangpu, has been exploding with new developments and skyscrapers. This area of the city feels much more planned, with lots of wide roads and perpendicular intersections (after coming from Dhaka, I was speechless!). The buildings are very practical and functional, with some interesting attempts at bringing public spaces to life. I think this picture says it all:

Say hello to Pudong!

Ian came out for lunch and we all sat down to have a meal in China! It was wonderful seeing friends from college again. We hadn't been separated that long, but we had so many stories to tell! David had been traveling through Europe and Asia, Ian was working in Shanghai, and Nate had been working in New Orleans and was just starting his travels in Asia. We were all doing different things, but we had all made the same decision to do something adventurous after college, and I was so happy to be able to catch up with them in the middle of their adventures while their mind-grapes were still being gently massaged by new experiences.

Soon after lunch, Pei, James' friend from high school, arrived from Hangzhou, where he is teaching English at a University. We spent a day or two wandering around Shanghai...


and checked out some of the sites.

Pei looking at something really high up

Most of the time I was in China, it was overcast, and so many of the buildings in Shanghai are made up of quiet, grayscale tones. No wonder I saw so much black and white photography in Shanghai art galleries. Almost all of my photos were hazy and gray. Once the weekend rolled in and Ian was free from work, we took a train to Hangzhou so Pei could show us around his city.

Blurry pictures of train stations are good for foreshadowing, right?

Hangzhou pictures/stories coming soon!

Dhaka to Hong Kong

Well back in December my school had a three week holiday. Ian lives in Shanghai, Pei lives in Hangzhou, and Nate and Jin were traveling in China at the same time as my vacation, so I went to China! I'll try to write some entries about things that I did in chronological order before I forget everything that happened!

My travels started in airports. While I was driving to Dhaka's Zia International Airport, it dawned on me that this was my first time leaving Bangladesh in over five months. Sitting in the international terminal, my ears searched desperately for every bit of Bangla they could find, and I watched the flight announcements sign skip back and forth between English and Bangla. Desperate for some Bangla conversation, I talked with the Snack Stand's night manager, who asked if we do "live-in" in America (i.e. do we live with boyfriends and girlfriends before getting married). "Of course we do live-in in America!" I replied. I'm proud to be an unofficial ambassador of all things we value in American culture.

Arriving at the Hong Kong airport at 5am local time only escalated all of the strange feelings that rushed into my head. I had just spent five months without going in a proper shopping mall or walking on a dirt-free road. In three and a half hours, I was plunged into an airport where even the slightest walking distance called for a people-mover, and people who wanted to smoke had specially designated rooms located at frequent intervals throughout the airport. There were even baby-changing rooms! Yes, rooms designed specifically for changing diapers! All of the stores were closed until 7 or 8am, but I couldn't stop walking around. One part of me was pumped about the Burger King that was opening in less than two hours, but I couldn't help feeling a little upset Bangladesh was being left behind. The idea of considering the needs of different kinds of people in public spaces, like non-smokers and women with babies, is decades away from reaching Bangladesh.

I was in such awe that I actually took pictures of the airport

The airport was completely empty at 5am, and as the hours passed while I waited for my connection to Shanghai, people started arriving, and the sun slowly rose in the horizon, revealing the silohetted mountains of Hong Kong. The only elevated terrain I had seen in the last five months was during my visit to Chittagong, so I walked to the glass to get as close as possible to this mountain. I was looking at China!

My Shanghai travels coming soon!