Shanghai is a much bigger, more expensive, more western, and has many more expats than what I'm used to in Guilin. At first it was a little bit of a culture shock for me again. It's just so much more fast pac
ed than what I've been used to. It really reminds me a bit of New York City. The first couple of days Luika was kind enough to show me around a little and teach me how to use the subway system. Now I'm pretty much a master, but who really cares. Anyway, the first couple of days I just kind of bummed around while Luika was studying, but I still got to see some places. Once she was done with her exams she started to work during the days so I would explore the city. I went to the Aquarium and saw a bunch of kewl fish and such. I also went up in the Jin Mao tower which overlooks the entire city. It was a fantastic view, although the windows hadn't been cleaned yet so my pictures have a few specs on them. I tried to get some of my money back, but my Chinese is rather lacking so, well I didn't really try at all. I really didn't even think about it until I just wrote that sentence. Maybe I should go back. Naa. On other days I explore the Yu Yuan Garden as well as The Bund and People's Square. I came to find out that Shanghai has a lot of watches, backpacks, etc. Ev
erywhere I went someone was trying to sell me something. I tried to sell my MP3 player to one of them, but I don't think he thought it was very funny. I did go to one of the underground markets to buy myself a new backpack because my other backpack broke a few days earlier. It was fun haggling with the store owner for the price of the backpack. Although I don't speak very much Chinese, I have been here long enough to know how much things should cost. So I bought a backpack and some soccer jerseys. Usually I would explore the city and then meet up with Luika later on for dinner or something. One morning I saw a lady run out of a cab to some bushes near by and puke. It was pretty gross, but at least her night before was probably a good one. Where was I? Oh yeah, Shanghai. Luika took me to some cool restaurants and bars around the city. I met a lot of very nice people. There are people from all over the world living in Shanghai which is pretty neat. It's fun to meet people and hear their stories. I tried to take a lot of pictures while I was in Shanghai, but most of them are scenery pictures since I was by myself a lot of the time while exploring. I always feel like a huge dork setting the timer on my camera to take a picture, but I got the courage to do it a few times. My last night in Shanghai, Luika and I went to The Bund so I could take some pictures. It really is quite beautiful at night. Another night Luika got tickets to this show called "Walking With Dinosaurs." It was a bunch of fake, real looking (does that make sense?), dinosaurs. It was interesting. It was all in Chinese but the dinosaurs were fun to watch. Hmm, what else? Can't think of anything right now, but Shanghai was a good time.Like I said, most of my time was spent in Shanghai, but we did manage to make it up to Harbin (Haerbin). Harbin is the the Northeast of China, very close to Russia. It is known for it's really co
ol Snow and Ice Festival, and also for its incredibly cold weather. We decided to make a short trip up there to see what all the fuss was about (we later came to find out that it's so damn cold...that's why people fuss). We flew in (delayed flight) Wednesday night and flew back to Shanghai (delayed flight again) on Friday night. Wednesday night we just walked around a little and found this Russian restaurant that Luika's friends had recommended to eat it. It was delicious. After that we walked around a little more then went back to the warm hostel. On Thursday we got up and went to eat some local food at McDonald's. Then we caught a cab to the Siberian Tiger Park. The tiger park reminded me of some scenes from the movie Jurassic Park. We were in a van with bars over the open windows so that the tigers couldn't eat us. We all know that it's fun and games until somebody gets hurt. They weren't taking any chances I guess. We drove through the tiger park where there are literally hundreds of tigers. It was really cool to see. Tigers are really amazing animals. We tried to 
buy a chicken to feed the tigers, but we couldn't figure out where to buy it. If you wanted, you could also buy a cow for 2000 yuan to feed to the tigers. No thanks. After we left the tiger park, we went back to our hostel and hung out in the lobby. We watched a few episodes of the not-as-good-as-the-American-version The Office and then played some card games. Later on in the night we went to the Snow and Ice Festival. I had four pairs of pants/tights on and four long sleeved shirts with a coat. I also had four pairs of socks with toe warmers (thank you Mrs. Bankson), and two pairs of gloves with hand warmers (thanks again Mrs. Bankson). I also wore a hat, a scarf, and something else to cover my face. That all still wasn't warm enough. It got close to -30 degrees Celsius, which is the coldest weather I've been in. That being said, I'm glad we went. The Festival was fun to see. The different things they built out of ice and snow were amazing. There were also tons of ice slides all over the place. I may have gone down one 
or two. Or most of them. Who doesn't like an ice slide? It was also interesting trying to take pictures because my camera started to be really slow and the battery started to run out very quickly because of the cold. Our eyelashes started to have icicles on them from the cold. It was just crazy. Crazy. Our eyelashes started to have icicles on them from the cold. We stayed at the Festival for a couple of hours, then headed back to the hostel. We were recommended a hot pot restaurant nearby for dinner so we thought we'd test 'er out. We walked in to this family owned establishment and immediately stared at by the 10 or so patrons there. The boss lady asked us if we could read/speak Chinese because the menu was only in Chinese. Luika can, so we decided to give it a try. We finally got all our food ordered successfully and it was brought out to the table. After about 10 minutes the husband of the boss lady left and came back with his daughter. She sat down
with us and asked if we needed anything from her. Huh? Apparently her dad went and got her to come sit with us and talk to us in English. Her English was very good and she was very nice. She sat with us for the rest of dinner. Earlier, before we got our food, we ordered a couple beers (3 for Luika and 1 for me). The warm lukewarm at best, so we asked for cold ones. The boss man then just took them outside and five minutes (maybe less) later they were nice and cold. That's how cold it was. After that we found this firework stand and bought some sparklers. We decided to light them one by one until we were done. We did it right in the middle of the street, right next to the rest of the fireworks. Good thing we didn't light the entire stand on fire. That probably wouldn't have been good. After that we just went back to the hostel and went to sleep. T
he next day we got all packed up and decided to walk around the town a bit more. We found this old church (I'm blanking on the name) and looked around a bit. We then went and had dumplings and made our way back to the hostel to leave for the airport. I spent a couple more days in Shanghai and then got back to Guilin late last night/early this morning. I had a fantastic time there.I'll be here in Guilin for about 14 more hours until I leave again. Like I said, today is my vacation between my vacations. Fritz and I leave tomorrow morning for Sanya, Hainan. It is an island off the Southeast coast of China. It is supposed to be the "Hawaii of China," so I'm looking forward to that. I've been in very freezing weather, and now I get to go to some warm, sunny weather. I'm not sure the exact date I'll be back in Guilin, but when I do get back I'll be sure to write about my travels to Sanya. If you want, you can always email me at kevinshrout@gmail.com. Also, I have posted all my pictures to Facebook so go check them out if you're interested. Well I better get going because I still have to unpack and then pack again. Rough life.
As always, I hope this post finds you all well. I miss you all terribly and love you as well. Life is funny sometimes, but it sure is good. Remember that.
-Kevin
