Finding friends

After a scare on my first day in Shanghai, I decided to stick to myself the following day. My only full day in town, I got up early and wandered towards the metro, picking up classic Shanghai-street food, namely 小笼包 - xiao long bao, translated as soup dumplings - and headed into town.

The main event of the day came in the afternoon (more on other events later), at the Shanghai museum. The beautiful four-story building, with a circular roof symbolizing the ancient Chinese belief that earth is square and heaven is round, is a goldmine of Chinese art, sculptures, statues, paintings, embroidery, calligraphy, poetry, and bronze workings, and is completely free. And it was on the fourth floor that I bumped into a old friend from boarding school that I hadn't seen in 6 years.

Part of a 6-person group from a Danish university conducting a field study of human resources in Shanghai, she was in town with 5 other Danes for the next 8 days. Their research was a collaboration with a Shanghainese university, so they were accompanied by 8 local students. I introduced myself (in rusty Chinese of course), and the freedom to speak their mother tongue was such a pleasure that they invited me to dinner within 3 minutes. I gladly accepted, so I ended up spending the evening having traditional Shanghai cuisine with locals, an old friend, and 5 other Danes for a total of 40 yuan.

After dinner and a stroll on The Bund (the picturesque waterfront area in central Shanghai, located on the banks of the HuangPu River, the final section of the massive Yangtze River before the East China Sea), the students retired for the evening, but the Danes (being Danes), decided to look for a bar. I headed with them, getting a chance to see Shanghai by night, as well as get an insight to an average Danes' view on China (GLOBErs are not average Danes, as they have had 5 months around 15 CUHK students, so they are accustomed to many cultural differences) - especially the lack of equality and democracy in China was remarked upon.

A 1 AM cab took me back to my hostel for measly 12 yuan, giving me a healthy 7 hours before I had to get up and embark on the next leg of my journey, an 850 km train ride west to Wuhan, central China's most populous city and the capital of Hubei province.