July 18 | On a train, en route to Shanghai!

11:38 AM - Officially left Wuhu and are on our way to the very last destination of our journey – Shanghai! Channeling my inner JK Rowling (pre richest author in the world ;)) as I’m writing this blog on a train. Not just any train… this is a bullet train, travelling at 300 km/hour – just a taaaaad bit faster than any road vehicles we are used to in Canada. Although it’s going fast, it feels just like any other train but to know you’ll get to Shanghai 3x as fast is a pretty cool feeling. This is going to be a pretty short ride, and we should get to Shanghai a bit after lunch.

The girls are I realized this morning that we pretty much took every form of transportation there is – planes, trains, busses, taxis (legal and illegal), subway, ferries and oh, cars (boring). The van ride from ACCSC to the train station (again, another beautiful work of architecture) was an hour and a half, and I spent most of that reminiscing about the last 3 weeks. I can’t even pinpoint how I feel about the fact that we are on the last leg of our trip. The sadness hasn’t kicked in yet because I’m too excited for Shanghai but I’m sure it’ll come around… something that I’m not looking forward to. If anything, at this very moment, I’m kind of excited to go back home… not to discredit this trip by any means, but you really do begin to miss certain things about your every day. With that said, I’m sure my opinion will change once I am sitting in my 3 hour policy class the very day after we get back (I’ll deal with that when it comes).

I went pretty OCD-crazy-planning mode for HK, so definitely going to lay back for Shanghai. At this point, anything goes and I’m really excited about that. Since the conference is officially over…can you say the word alcohol? Need to start to get back into drinking shape for school, you know ;).

This morning, I also thought about a list of things that I surprised myself with throughout this trip… I’m sure once I’m back home I’ll figure out a bunch more but these are just top of mind:

§   Being okay with the lack of coffee

• Every time we see/go to a Starbucks, it feels more of a treat and you appreciate it so much more. Hard to think that just a month ago, Starbucks was habitual. I highly doubt my coffee habits will change that drastically when I head back home but my body is probably thanking me for this little break from caffeine.

§  Enjoying living standards that are so foreign to our fortunate lives

• Those faint at heart might not enjoy some aspects of mainland China, like the dirty roads, instances of poor human hygiene and hack washrooms. With the exception of the washrooms, there are many social differences that not only did I not mind, I kind of enjoyed… one that my friends never understood was my liking for the wooden ‘mattresses’. I swear my back felt amazing every morning. Not that I would want this to be my every day, but just to live like a local for 3 weeks? I don’t mind at alllllll.

§  Social media detox (sort of.)

• All of us were probably going through withdrawal from the lack of our 93472389 platforms. Hong Kong was okay, since we had Wifi at the hostel but Shenzhen was true detoxing. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult as I expected but once we got to Beijing, it was a blessing and a curse. We were finally able to access Wifi (and we installed a program back home to be able to access blocked sites)… once you go on once, you feel the need to check it once a day. Now I kind of wish we were completely cut-off cold turkey because that would have been one big accomplishment.

§  Being able to control my shopping, in the presence of bartering markets

• Let’s just say that I was 150% prepared (and expecting) to buy another wheeled carry-on suitcase to hold all my shopping. I am proud (and deep down, probably a little sad) to say that I am able to fit all my purchases in my original luggage! Kiiiiind of wishing I brought back some more things but am absolutely in love with all my finds! Also proud to say that I have become pretty good at bartering. Thinking back to my first time at Ladies Market in HK in comparison to Beijing’s Silk Market… I’ve definitely improved, if I can say so myself ;) – but on no where close to Miss. Miranda, Queen of Bartering. Though I will never forget some of the vendors telling me that I’m a tough bargainer (secretly on cloud 9). 

§  Being completely accepting of all foods, as weird as it looks

• Okay, let’s be real. Visiting Asia as an Asian probably reduced my culture shock by tenfold. Vietnamese and Chinese food is pretty much the same, so I didn’t eat too many things here that I never tasted before. Still some questionable looking dishes at the school lunches (like the time I got a fish head with its eyeballs falling out…) but all in all, I am most definitely a foodie and will try most things at least once!

§  Not being mistaken for being Chinese as frequently as I thought

• At first, this was a complete shocker. Though as the trip went on, it only made sense that people can tell I’m a foreigner… and NO, not all Asians look the same. Even the difference in our skin colour was a telling sign that I didn’t live in China – in Asia, women are obsessed with pale skin, as North America is all about the sun kissed glow. Women even purchase whitening creams to artificially lighten their skin tone… (Something I will never understand, like how people here will never understand why Hayley and I try to tan during lunch break). Also, walking around with 5 white people all the time probably had something to do with it.