It is Tuesday evening and tomorrow we fly back to the USA. We spent the morning today taking the high speed train from Hangzhou to Shanghai. It was very comfortable 1 hour and 18 minute ride at about 170 kph max speed (approx 100 mph). This afternoon everybody had time to squeeze in whatever they still wanted to do in China. This evening we had our final evening meal together as a group. Tomorrow we depart our hotel at about noon to catch our afternoon flight. We will take the MagLev train http://www.smtdc.com/en/index.asp to the airport, which goes as fast as 430 kpm (270 mph) which is as fast as any student will have travelled over the ground.
This will be the final blog of the course. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you see any students that participated in the course be sure to ask them to explain China to you from the perspective of a Chinese person. They are all writing a reflective essay on that topic before next week Monday.
Our hotel in Shanghai is on East Nanjing Road, which is the main shopping street in Shanghai. It is spring festival right now and many people are not working and most seem to be shopping. The below is a mid afternoon East Nanjing Road street scene from today. Note not only the number or people but also that all the hair is black. A sea of black hair. This stretches as far as the eye can see... perhaps a mile or so. Our hotel is on the left about two blocks down this street.
We had a group dinner on a boat permanently moored on the HuangPo river in the Bund area with great views of the Pudong skyline across the river.
This is the gangplank leading to the boat.
Table 1
Table 2 - note the view of the river and beyond. Shanghai is a city of night lights.
Table 3
Everybody tucking in to their last Chinese meal. In the foreground are Danny, Jeff, Andrew and Lance.
Roast duck is always popular with the students. A little roast duck with sauce and small celery strips on a minature crepe. Mmmm, good.
Dumplings filled with meat ball and broth.
During the share-funny-story-time, Danny telling the group about the middle aged guy who made himself at home in his and Josh's "open-door-policy" hotel room one evening.
Karen and Whitney with a colorful boat passing by. Shanghai is a feast for your eyes at night. Every five minutes or so we were reminded we were on a boat because it would gentle sway a bit in another boats wake.
After dinner some of the grouped walked back to our hotel on along the Bund. The below is a view of the buildings on our side (the Bund side) of the river. These older buildings were built by Europeans when they had concessions in Shanghai from approx 1850 to 1900. The buildings look like transplants from London.
Some of the students who were walking posed for a picture with the Pudong side of the river in the background. That side has all been developed in the past 20 years and is quite different from the Bund side. Big buildings, strange shapes, lots of moving lights.
Vendors were selling paper balloons that have a small candle in them. You open the balloon and light the candle and let the balloon go up. The heat from the candle carries the balloon up and away until it passes from sight because it is too far away and too high.
Jessye working with the vendor to get it set up.
How do you light this thing? Krista, Prof Si, Monica, Jessye and Suzanna.
The vendor back to show them how.
Holding it up right until it fills with heat
And there it goes (center right of photo - looks greenish)
Many people were buying the fire balloons and sending them up. Here you see five of them high in the ski. The go very high, clearing the tops of the buildings as the wind carries them off.
