National Holiday

So I had my first vacation while living in China. I guess I didn’t miss out on the Fall Reading Week Laurier just introduced. However, I will miss out on a Thanksgiving dinner and pumpkin pie, and pumpkin flavoured anything. Even Starbucks doesn’t carry that stuff.

So I had seven days off, and I went to Shanghai. Shanghai is considered to be China’s financial capital. It is probably one of the most modernized and westernized cities in the country. Upon my arrival Cait met me at the airport and we went and met some of her friends, and we played a few dice games. We spent the next day as busy little bees walking across the city. We saw the Bund at night, hello to a beautiful sky line. However, it was National Day, which meant almost every Chinese person had the day off and were all travelling. Some how, a good majority of them decided to go to Shanghai and wander the Bund. So the crowd was wild. We had done some shopping, and exploring of People’s Square, and Nanjing East.

The rest of the days in Shanghai followed suit. We went to one tourist area after the other. We went to the French Concession, and Xintiandi. We saw a few temples, one being the Jade Buddha Temple. We saw the Yuyuan Gardens and other parks and green spaces in Shanghai.

For my North Bay friends, we found this store! I was really hoping they’d sell something with the logo on it, but they didn’t.

We spent one day going to Suzhou. Which is this little water-town, or Venice like city. We took a boat ride to see some of it. It was a walled city, and we saw some of the old architecture. Past exploring all the normal touristy stuff, we got massages, and made friends with people at the Hostels.