Beijing: Day 2

Day 2:

We were all up and ready at 6.00 am since we had booked vans that would take us to the Great Wall at 6. It was a 2 and a half hour ride. It was beauuutiful when we got there. As soon as we started our climb it started raining. Good thing we bought raincoats the previous day right? wrong! They weren't raincoats. We were all drenched soon.

However, the climb was exhilarating! There are 12 towers and a place to rest between each tower. The climb between the towers got a little tiring sometimes but mostly it was great to just take in the scenery and take in the fact that we were on the Great Wall of China. At one point during our climb, half the group went a little ahead and half of us stayed behind. Then we yelled GO and the other group yelled BLUE. It was great doing that on the Great Wall. We also did the "Where the Hell is Matt" dance. Of course, when we got to the top we sang "Hail to the Victors".

We had originally planned on ziplining to the bottom once we got to the top but because of the rain the Zipline was closed. The other way to get down was to take the cable cars from tower 8. So we began our descent from tower 12. I slipped loads of times and fell on my behind twice. I was still having a great time though! We saw a couple in their wedding clothes taking their wedding pictures in one of the towers. Finally, we reached the bottom. I think the whole thing took around 4 hours. We were all tired after the Wall. We rested during the drive back and then went to see the Olympic Stuff.

View before we started climbing the wall

View before we started climbing the Wall

Michigan Students

We were in the clouds. After sometime, we were above the clouds

So high up!

At the place where the Olympic stuff was, we saw the place where they lit the torch, the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. It had stopped raining and the weather was nice so we hung around there till sunset so that we could see the buildings lighted up. We did the " Where the Hell is Matt" dance again and a 10 people pyramid was built. While we were doing all this, the Chinese people there were very curious and there were many times when we were encircled by people taking pictures of us. One man asked me to take a picture with him.

And then the lights came on and it was beautiful!

After hanging out for a while more, we went to dinner, showered and went straight. It was one of the best, most exhilarating and most tiring days of my life!

Place where they lit the torch

Bird's Nest

Water Cube

Pyramid!

Nayana

Beijing: Day 1

I'm going to skip ahead to what we did our first day in Beijing and continue updates about things we did earlier in later posts.

On Wednesday evening, 19 of us boarded a train to Beijing. The ride was going to be 10 hours long and we would arrive in Beijing at 7.20 and then take the metro to our hotel after which we would go out exploring.

Shanghai Train Station

Train Sleeper Cabin which we did not get

Our compartment

Driving at 163 km/hr!

After getting to the hotel and storing our stuff, we split off into groups and took the metro to Tiananmen Square. We moved into the Forbidden City after that. You get student discounts on tickets if you show your student IDs. I enjoyed walking through the City and it was fun just people watching.

Tiananmen Square

Forbidden City

During our entire stay here, we weren't surprised when Chinese people would approach the white people in our group and asked to be photographed with them. However, during one of our tourist visits in Shanghai, someone approached one of my Indian friends and asked to be photographed only with him while I was standing right there. I was kind of sad. BUT, in the Forbidden City, I was approached by a group of 3 people (2 women and 1 man) who started gesturing to me with their camera. I assumed they wanted me to take their picture but that's not what they wanted. They wanted me to be in their picture! I was soo happy. The one photo they asked me to take with them turned out to be an entire photo shoot. They took pictures with all possible combinations of the 3 people in the pictures with me and they didn't just stand beside me and smile. They tried a new pose in every picture. My favorite was when they stood sideways beside me and put both their hands on my shoulder. I thought it was soo sweet but I was having a hard time controlling my laughter which was not helped by my friends watching me and laughing in the background. But the people were very nice and thanked me after taking pictures.

Soon after, someone else came up to me to take a picture with them. It was a man who wanted me to take a picture with his kid. His kid was a very healthy 3 -4 year old boy. So I bend down to be in the picture with him but the father gestured that I should carry him! Carrying him wasn't going to be easy so I began giving my camera and purse to someone else to hold. As soon I was done I took a deep breath and started bending down to pick up the boy. Right then, the kid runs to his father and refuses to be in the picture. The father kept trying to persuade him but the boy just refused to come next to me. Yes, all the Michigan kids who were with me wouldn't stop laughing and yes, there is a video which I will post once I get it.

People who wanted to take pictures with me. Andy (left) jumped in for the last picture of the photo shoot

Afterwards, we went to Beihai Park which was pretty. We saw the Nine Dragon Wall and the White Dagoba.

Nine Dragon Wall - Notice the Maize and Blue Dragons

After the Beihai Park we headed back to the hotel and all the groups got together and soon we set out to Wangfujin. This place had malls and was famous for this small street which had very interesting food. This interesting food included scorpions, lizards, caramelized fruit, fried bananas, fried ice cream. So there was disgusting and really yummy stuff. I did not go near any of the weird stuff but some friends ate scorpions and donkey private parts(yuk!). I just got some caramelized fruit, chicken on a stick and some turkey that was cooked in an arabic style. Since, it was raining and it was going to rain all day the next day, many of us bought matching coats that we thought were raincoats in different colors. Since we had nothing better to do, someone suggested we do a runway show in the middle of the street with our raincoats. So that's what we did then called it a night. We had done A LOT of walking that day and were very tired.

Nayana

Week 1: Classes and Massages

Our classes began Monday, May 10th. Since, the campus is so big and I have a terrible sense of direction, I had no idea where our class was. Luckily, 20 out of the 35 enrolled students are in the same class so we all walked there together. There isn't "Michigan time" here i.e. class doesn't start 10 minutes after the hour, it starts on time. Class was at 10 am so, we all got there at around 10 but all the front seats were packed. Students come early to class to be able to sit in the front seats. This awoke the competitive spirit in some of us and we decided that we would get to class 10 minutes early to sit in front. Since then, I have always been in a seat in the first or second row.

Picture from Andrew H's camera of our classroom. The classrooms have tons of windows and are very bright!

The other class I'm taking is a Chinese culture class and since the kids in the class are the kids from our program, we go back to our lazy ways and don't compete for front row seats.

The week was pretty good. I was getting used to the campus and getting to know the people in the program. They're all a lot of fun to hang out with. We found a BBQ place next to our dorms which is just a stall that BBQs all different types of meat and has tons of seats around it. Its always very crowded, so we assumed that's the "cool" hang out place. It's actually great. We all hang out there as a big group a couple of times a week. I've heard the food they serve is really good even though I haven't tried it yet. I saw someone eating BBQ squid. I'm not sure how long it's going to be until I'm ready to try that.

Other ways to have fun here is play basketball or tennis or ping pong. I've played Ping Pong with a couple of Chinese kids. It is a lot of fun! They are very very friendly and go out of the way to include you. They usually speak Mandarin amongst themselves but make an effort to speak English when we are around. They also lent me their Ping Pong paddles so that I could play with them. The stereotype of Chinese being amazing at Ping Pong made me nervous about playing with them at first, but I found out it was just a stereotype. Even then, I was overjoyed when I was able to win a few games against some of them.

The big activity of that week, organized by Czahreena, was a trip to a massage parlor! woot! I had never gotten a massage before and was very excited to finally get one. A big group of us got on the metro and got off at the area close to the massage place. The place was sending over a van that would drive us from the metro station to the massage place and could fit 6 at a time. We were told that the van would take 5 minutes to come back after dropping a group off. It was more like half an hour. The van had come and gone 2 times and there were still 11 of us left. So, we decided to fit in all 11 at once into this small van and go to the massage place. I don't know how we fit in 11 people and a driver but all I'm going to say is that I'm glad there was going to be a massage at the end of it.

We got the massage place and chose our massages. I was going to get a full body massage and a foot massage for one hour each and I didn't pay much at all. It was very very cheap compared to the USA. They made us take off our shoes and gave us some bamboo shoes instead. When we reached the massage rooms they asked us to put on some maroon robes with maroon shorts for the massage. We were also allowed to choose from a variety of teas and coffee for our drink. I chose ginger tea. The massage was soooooo relaxing. I fell asleep towards the end of my foot massage. After the massage, I felt so light and happy!

Waiting for the van. We, especially the Caucasian kids, were getting stares from passers by particularly an old lady who kept walking by us and staring. Most of the kids are used to this by now and it's no surprise to them if some local people randomly come and stand next to them and start taking pictures. Another reason we were getting stares is because all of us were sitting on the ground. People don't usually just sit down on the floor and wait.

12 of us in the van ( 10 in the picture+ 1 taking the picture+ 1 driver)

Entering the massage place

Our robes at the massage place

After the massage, we took cabs to a restaurant for dinner. They had lazy Susan tables. Perfect after the massage. At this dinner, I tried Jellyfish for the first time. I did not like it at all. It tasted like nothing and the texture was funny. Some others liked it though.

Jellyfish

Left: Tofu , Right: Some part of the Lotus

The Lotus thing was really good

Something that I quickly began to realize about the students on campus and especially our buddies was that they are all extremely friendly and always willing to help. They invite us to play ping pong with them, to eat dinner with them, they lend us their ping pong paddles and always recognize us and stop to talk if we walk by them on the street. This is very different from the USA. It 'll be a good thing if all of us, including me, can learn to be as friendly and welcoming as the SJTU kids are. It's a beautiful culture and I wish to learn and practice it as well :)

There's still a lot to update on. It seems like we have something planned for everyday. However, it's time for homework now. Will talk about weekend # 2 in the next blog which won't be for a few days since I'm going to Beijing tomorrow!

Nayana

And the adventures begin

The next thing on our schedules was the tour of Shanghai downtown. On Sunday, we set out at 7 am in the morning in identical t shirts to get on the metro to downtown. The metro was very confusing at first because the names of stations were confusing. The names are spelled out in English too so we're getting used to them now and have already taken the metro by ourselves a couple of times. The metro is very very nice here. It's clean and has enough things to hold on to. Since we were on it very early on a Sunday morning, it wasn't very crowded but I was told that it gets very crowded at other times and you have to wait for a couple of trains to go by before there's space for you to get on it.

Our first stop was the Xuhui campus which the main campus. We are on the Minhang campus which is the equivalent of north campus but MUCH bigger. From there we took a bus that was chartered that was especially chartered for us by the school to a museum where they had exhibits which showed the beginning of communism and the communist party in China. We had to go through metal detectors to enter. If you had liquids with you, you had to take a sip before entering. I'm so special that they didn't make me take a sip from my water!

Street outside the communism museum

Communism Party Logo

Next, we took the bus to Xintiandi. Xintiandi is a an area where there was a small upscale mall and other upscale restaurants. It's a cute place that had 2 parts to it: one which had older buildings representing old China and a part which had buildings representing the China of today. There was a Starbucks, and the coffee addicts who couldn't last 2 days without coffee went right in to get their fix.

Hai-Bao: The World Epo Mascot. Starbucks in the background. There was also a very tall McKinsey and Co. Building

Super Mario at a stall in Xintiandi

After Xintiandi, we went to place called Tianzifang which is famous for its art and restaurants that have cuisines from all over the world. We got lunch at a Vietnamese and ordered mostly by pointing. For somethings pointing doesn't work and that's when you appreciate the Mandarin speakers in your friends group.

East Nanjing Road

Next on the agenda was East Nanjing Road also known ans People's Square. This was one of my favorite places. We had heard that this was the place to find all the fake stuff and where you really have to bargain hard when you try to buy something. We were completely ready for this unique Chinese experience. We walked around for a bit on the street, which is beautiful, but only saw big malls and normal fixed price stores. We had broken up into small groups and our group really wanted to do some cheap shopping. All the time that we were walking on the road, street hawkers kept approaching us offering to sell us DVDs and shoes but we kept ignoring them saying "buyao" which means don't want. Then, someone in our group suggested that we may need to follow these hawkers to find the cheap fake stuff. So the next time a hawker came up to us, we were as surprised as he was when we agreed to go buy his "DVDs and shoes". So, we started to follow him thinking that he would take us to one of the small stores on the side of the street that we were on. But, he turned down a dark alleyway and started leading us down it and we all freaked out! All of us including me were scared half to death that he was going to take us into the alley, get his buddies, kill us and take all our stuff. We kept following him anyways. after about a 3 minute walk in the dark alley way, we came across this inconspicuous door hiddenbetween 2 buildings and the man opened that door. We were so surprised and relieved when we looked inside and saw a nice little shop with all the Gucci, Burberry, Chanel, etc., merchandise that you could want.

We met some really good natured and funny Slovakian people in the store who were bargaining for shades. It was really funny watching them since they kept making jokes about everything. The proceeded to give us some tips. They told us that if the shopkeeper asked for 1000 yuan we should without thinking just say 10. Good Lesson :)

One of our friends found a belt that he liked and we decided to support him and bargain as a whole group. Another person in our group, named Mayank, took charge of the bargaining and started trying to bring the price down with help from us. All of a sudden, the shopkeeper pulls out a lighter and starts trying to light the belt on fire. All of our jaws drop open and were just gaping at the shopkeeper who was trying to set the belt on fire. Mayank did not even blink. He just said: Yea so, I know belts don't light on fire, now give me this for 30! It was now time to just gape at Mayank. Needless to say, we walked out with the belt and a significantly lower price than was quoted to us. We tried to take a picture on the way out, but the people inside freaked out, started screaming and quickly shut the door. We laughed for a while at that.

The man again came up to us and asked if we wanted shoes. I don't think any of us really wanted shoes but we were having too much fun looking at all the fake stuff and were excited for another adventure. So, he takes us down another dark alley as we were expecting. 5 minutes later, we were still walking and we all started freaking out again. We were passing some abandoned buildings and playgrounds and the number of people was getting lesser and lesser. I was holding onto my purse really hard! One of our friends, was very discreetly taking a video while we were walking there. Finally, we reached this doorway and the man walks inside. It was really dark and there was a nasty smell. The thought going through my head was "dead bodies - run". I don't know why but after a moments hesitation we all followed him in anyways and after a 30 second walk in the creepy place we arrived at a tiny store with shoes. We were relieved to see that there was a shop there. I'm quite sure that this shop was run by a gang because we saw a few guys in suits looking all serious with the same dragon tattoo on their neck. One of the guys started complaining about the bad quality of the shoes that these gang members were selling and the rest of us thought he was going to piss them off and they would shoot us. Thankfully, nothing happened and we left safely with our purses and lives.

It was a great adventure and the best part of my day!

After that we went to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre which is a 5 story building. We spent quite a while exploring it.

Model of Shanghai Downtown. Sometimes they light up the buildings to depict night time

After that we took the bus to Chenghuangmiao which is a very beautiful place and also has the really pretty Nu Yang Garden. Unfortunately, the garden was closed by the time we got there. The most famous dumplings restaurant in Shanghai was at this place and some of us stood in like for 1 hour to get some. They were really yummy.

Beautiful buildings in Chenghuangmiao

The famous dumpling restaurant

Lastly, we went to the Bund which is by the river. The view was beautifuuuul. We walked along the river for about an hour and then got an a boat which takes you across the river. All of us were very tired but whatever we were seeing from the boat was so beautiful that it made it worth it. A Chinese guy took a picture with one of the really tall Caucasian guys in our group. We all thought it was really funny.

This is the line to get on the boat. Everyone was pushing even though we all already had tickets

View from both sides of the river. Both the sides looked very different and very pretty

Sunday was a packed day and I had a grrreat time! The only problem was that it rained the whole time we were out. But, it's time to get used to that since it rains here at least a little bit every day.

Nayana

Arrival

We all arrived in Shanghai at the Shanghai Pudong International Ariport on May 7th. Most of us had been travelling for 15 hours or more. We were picked up at the airport by the IPO staff who are the friendliest and nicest people I have ever met. They put us on a bus and we that's how we made the 45 minute journey back to campus. When we got to campus, we were welcomed by our buddies. Buddies are local JI students who volunteered to help us out with anything we might need help with. They showed us to our dorms, how to get into our dorms, how to get into our rooms, where the bathrooms were and handed us a folder which had our ID cards, metro cards, metro schedule, amazing guide book and other things which would keep us all from being absolutely clueless and being lost all the time.

My room is fine. It's small and cozy but it works since I barely spend anytime in my room. All the beds have nets around them to keep the mosquitoes out at night. That's a relief since I've heard horror stories about the mosquitoes. The room has an air conditioner too.

After setting down my bags, I had my first experience in the dorm bathrooms. The toilets are squatters! There is no toilet paper in the bathrooms either! I have to carry my own roll every time I have to go to the bathroom! The only soap in the bathrooms is the bar soap which everyone else uses. I quickly added hand soap dispensers to my "must buy" list. The showers aren't straightforward either. You have to pay for hot water (what?!). We were all given shower cards which you have to put in the meter that's in the shower every time you want hot water. The machine then starts counting down from 5 and charges 0.03 Yuan every 5 seconds. Needless to say, you quickly learn how to take super quick and efficient showers.

Shanghai is 12 hours ahead of Ann Arbor, so I was up bright and early the next day i.e. Saturday. Also, the sun rises really early in Shanghai so that didn't help me get into the sleep cycle even though I was extremely tired from my 15+ hour flight the previous day. Saturday was our orientation and also the first time that I was going to meet everyone in the program. We all met in front of the girls' dorm and were led by the IPO staff kids Joe, Amanda and Shelly to the JI building where we had cereal, milk, PB&J sandwiches and juice/coffee for breakfast. We also met the advisor Czahreena De Leon who, we quickly learned, has an endless supply of energy. She is so active and happy all the time. We all already love her! Following breakfast, we played an ice breaker, listened to the orientation presentation where they told us a lot about campus, going downtown, where to eat, where to shop etc. We were also told that we had a curfew and had to be back in the dorms by 12 am or face being locked out or face the wrath of the dorm mothers who have the keys to the dorm doors. We call our dorm mothers "ayee". I am very hesitant to get on my ayee's bad side because she does my laundry for me. I'm scared she might put ink in my clothes when I go to put them in the washer. However, so far so good. The ayees are still very nice and my clothes are ink-free.

After orientation, we took a tour of the campus which is HUGE! Bigger than the U of M Central Campus. I have a horrible sense of direction and after the first 5 minutes of the tour, I was just blindly following the group around without having any idea of where I was. I knew that I was definitely going to get lost on my way to class on Monday. However, the tour was great because the campus is so beautiful; there's a river and a lake and it is full of trees. Since, basketball it very popular here, there are a lot of bball courts. Tennis and ping pong are also popular and we saw courts for all 3 all over campus. I forgot to carry my camera with me on the first day so I don't have any pictures but I'll steal some off my friends and post them here.

After the tour ended, our buddies picked us up to go shopping. We headed to a store that was a 15 minute walk away from campus. A lot of the places in Shanghai are very misleading. The buildings look old and run down from the outside but when you enter, it is amazing! The building we entered, did not look very impressive on the outside, but inside it was really nice! The store had everything from brand new laptops to international brand washing machines, from detergent to fresh fruits and veggies, from cell phones to shoes. it had EVERYTHING! I bought a really cheap cell phone for the 2 months that I'm going to spend here in China. My buddy had to do all the talking since no one there spoke English and I don't speak any Mandarin. I picked out a 178 Yuan ($26) Samsung phone which has 2 games, calculator, alarm, calling and texting. What a luxury compared to my iPhone ... not! I quickly got the rest of the stuff that I needed for my room. I found green tea flavored and strawberry flavored oreo cookies in the store. Obviously I got way too interested and ended up buying the strawberry ones. They were yum!

After shopping, we were all really tired from all the walking we went to go rest before our Shanghai tour the next day. And what a day that was! Will include details about our adventures from Shanghai in my next post! Few pictures included below.

Nayana

My China phone and my USA phone. My China phone has a snowman sticker on it so that I don't mix it up with other people's phones. A ton of people bought this same exact phone.
My Room! We have to hang out our clothes to dry since there aren't any dryers here, only small washers.

Nihao!

Hi!

My name is Nayana Srivastava and I am going to be a senior. I am an Industrial and Operations Engineering major and a student in the Engineering Global Leadership Honors Program. The EGL Program combines a traditional engineering undergraduate curriculum with a core of courses in the Ross School of Business and a cultural core in the College of Literature, Science and Arts. I hope to gain a Bachelor's and Master's degree in IOE through this program. I am currently studying abroad at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai. I will be in China till the end of June and will take ME 240 and a Chinese culture class during my stay here. At the end of the summer, I will be volunteering in Peru through the EGL Volunteer Abroad program. Needless to say, this is going to be one exciting summer! I have been in Shanghai 4 days and already have lots to share! So keep an eye out for future blogs. That's all for now but I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences!

Nayana