SMU Update 6/2/14

For me this was my last weekend I planned to go downtown in Shanghai. Originally we wanted all the international students including the Americans, Ukrainians, our friend Alex from Denmark, the two kids from Poland, and the Koreans to go downtown and get together and have one more final celebration before leaving China and going back to our respective countries. We, and by “we” I definitely don’t mean me because I am such a terrible planner, had been making arrangements all week long so everyone was on the same page. I guess not everyone decided to show up but for the most part people did and we had a really great time Friday night! We stayed in our favorite hostel where they employees have gotten to know us very well. They don’t even charge us the 20 RMB for loosing room keys anymore, lucky us! The next morning most everyone went about shopping and getting last minute gifts for family members, myself included. Later in the evening we went to one of our favorite places, Helen’s International Bar and Restaurant where we ate and hung out with each other for a while. We saw friends we had met there before and said goodbye one last time. Afterward we went go karting at a place very near to our hostel. I originally planned not to go but after getting lost on the subway and retracing my steps back to Helens I had no choice but to catch a cab with the other students and go. I’m glad I got lost because it was so much fun. There was a group of nine of us and they let four or five on at a time. I was a little scared to go with the boys so me and Mary, our friend from SMU, decided to go in the second heat to avoid being slammed by another go-kart. They were all amped up and planning on bumping into each other, and that honestly scared the hell out of me, it looked like it hurt, a lot. After watching the boys go it was our turn. Those. Go karts. Fly. They were so fast and it was so hard to turn the wheel and avoid colliding with the bumpers! Even though I thought it was safer in the second round someone ended up colliding with my kart and I instantly had a headache. Thankfully our time was up and I could sit down for a sec and stop feeling too light headed. We got back to the hostel around one after walking a half mile to find a cab, the go-kart place wasn’t exactly near a main road, we were lucky an empty cab decided to drive down into the middle of nowhere Shanghai. The next day everyone was tired so we headed back to SMU to relax before having to prepare for finals week! Yay ……….

SMU Update 5/27/14

After coming back from Hainan it was a relief to get back into the swing of things. It was nice to be back in class and going about the normal routine. I personally didn’t want to go downtown this weekend and stay the night. I wanted to catch up on school work and work that needed doing back at MMA. I did however go into the city for lunch with my roommate from last year, Claire. Her aunt and uncle wanted to take all the American international student out for a traditional Chinese lunch. We took the subway in and met Claire a few blocks from the restaurant. It was actually pretty nice because it was an area of Shanghai we hadn’t been to before. The restaurant was really beautiful, there was Chinese decorations everywhere. We realized it was a seafood joint once we walked in because our lunch was still swimming around in tanks. We had a private room in the back with a large table with a big centerpiece and fancy table cloth. Claire’s relatives spoke a little English, enough that we could kindly introduce ourselves and learn their names. A few other Chinese students who came to MMA last year joined us as well, it was nice to see them one last time before leaving China. Lunch was very good, the seafood tasted awesome, although honestly I was a little skeptical of some of the dishes, but overall delicious. My favorite dish was the Indian bread, which is oddly served at most upper scale Chinese restaurants. They have an Indian chef right there making it out in the lobby. Afterward we thanked Claire’s aunt and uncle and they left while we stayed and talked for a little while. It really is nice to see the bonds we made with our Chinese roommates from last year evolve and continue even though we are so far away from each other in reality. Afterward some of us stayed in the city and some of us went back to campus and just hung around. It was a nice quite easy weekend after the hype of Hainan!

SMU Update 5/18/11

The cadets here along with the international students had the privilege to be taken on a tour by Shanghai Maritime University to the Shanghai World Financial Center, and the Shanghai Museum. The significance of the Shanghai World Financial Center is that it is one of the tallest buildings in the world, and in fact has the highest skywalk in the entire world. Yes, and we got to go to the top of it. We could see the building from tens of miles away on our way into the city as it towers over everything else. The building almost looks like a bottle opener because there is a huge hole in the middle of building near the top. Later we found out that engineers needed to style the building this way because it stands so tall that the wind needs travel through it. From the outside, you could not even see the top from the bottom.

This is a huge tourist attraction in Shanghai, as the place was extremely crowded. We entered a pitch black room, and it seemed like we were waiting in line for Space Mountain at Disney World. From there we entered a futuristic elevator, and everything was neon lit. The elevator took us up to the top floor in under ten seconds. I wish they had warned me that my ears would pop. The skywalk stands at 492-metres (1,614-ft). As you can see the outside is visible at all angles. The floor is glass too, which at first I hesitated to step on to it. 

You could see the entire city, and even more. The view at night must be unimaginable. It honestly was like we were looking out the window of an airplane, you could barely see the cars. After that we were taken to the gift store where we all bought some souvenirs. It was a great tour, and is a must-see for anyone who visits China. This is a symbol of China’s emerging economic dominance. What is even crazier is that they are in the process of creating an even taller building right next door!

SMU Update 5/13/11

As part of our Port and Terminal Management class, we traveled to the Yangshan Deepwater Port south of Shanghai today. The Yangshan Port was designed to meet the demand for deeper berths that can’t be met in the shallow Port of Shanghai, and we had all been looking forward to this field-trip for quite some time. While most of us have been to a port before, I know that I have never personally seen so many cranes and berths, not to mention that many containers!

The journey to Yangshan Port may have been even more interesting than the port itself, as we had to  cross a 32.5 km bridge to get there! The Donghai Bridge is the 2nd longest in the world and was built specifically to connect the port, which is on an island, to the mainland, and thus is only really crossed by trucks. A portion of the bridge is flanked by rows of offshore windmills, so it was sort of a sneak-peek of what the windmills could look like off Cape Cod, and we were all pretty impressed. We weren’t able to tour much of the port, but we took pictures from a viewpoint and felt pretty lucky to get to see something so relevant to our studies.

SMU Update 5/9/11

As we reach the final month of our exchange program and I think back on my experience thus far, one of the most exciting that I have to mention is certainly our trip to Chengdu, to see PANDAS!

Vanessa and I had mentioned to our Chinese Culture professor, a cheerful travel-enthusiast and avid mountain climber (you wouldn’t believe that she took her own Everest pictures if she wasn’t in some of them!), that we would feel that our entire trip to China was unfulfilling if we didn’t get to see any pandas, and she said that it is a goal of hers to travel to the Giant Panda Research Base in Chengdu, a two-hour flight west of Shanghai, to see (and hold!) pandas.
In addition to the research base, an hour outside of Chengdu is Leshan, home of the “Giant Buddha,” carved into the side of a mountain. We had learned all about this Buddha during Chinese Culture class, so going to see both of these made the flight seem quite worth it. For about $300 USD round-trip, we flew to Chengdu (somehow finagling first-class on the way back!) and stayed in a hotel for about $75/double room for two nights. The costs of travel certainly make the trips so much easier to go on!

We took a bus to Leshan for 20Y ($3 for a one hour ride? No problem), and paid an additional 100Y to get into the viewing area. If you were wondering, having a “student-visa” sticker in your passport does not go toward a 50% student discount, so while some of us had our MMA IDs, the rest of us suffered the $15 blow to our wallets.
We walked around the viewing area, up and down incredible sets of stairs, stopping to take pictures with Chinese girls when we caught them taking pictures of the boys, and taking in the breathtaking views of the water and the mountains. We thought that we’d save the Buddha for last, leaving plenty of time to take a 30 minute cab to the Leshan Bus Station for our 7 pm bus to Chengdu. We got into line around 3, really wanting to leave time to enjoy the view from below. The line starts fairly high up on the mountain, so after the first 30 minutes in line, we were excited to be moved with a large group to the actual line, as it turns out we were in the line-before-the-line. Standing behind the Buddha’s head, we couldn’t wait to see how amazing the whole thing must be, if the painted eye-brow is as long as my body, at least. The line snakes back and forth about 100 people deep in each section through narrow barriers, which was extra fun when it started sprinkling and the umbrellas went up. By 5:15, we started to get nervous that we wouldn’t even get to glimpse the Buddha, being in the section of the line furthest from the edge, but finally made it to the top of the stairs by 5:30. While we read the signs warning that the stairs were too slippery-when-wet to allow visitors to navigate during the rain, it started to rain a little harder and we started to get more nervous. After much debate, we figured there was no way we were going to make it backwards through the line to go look for a cab by 6:15, not to mention we were probably never going to have a chance to see the largest Buddha in China ever again, so we decided to worry about missing the bus when the time came, even though there are no hotels or anywhere to stay in Leshan.

The stairs got narrower and even steeper, flat against the side of the mountain, and we made it down to the base by 6, surprisingly. We had a quick and casual four minute photo shoot, before making it back to the entrance (by climbing, no running, stairs BACK UP the mountain and down the other side) and started looking for a cab around 6:20. Little did we realize that everyone else in Leshan was also looking for a cab and there were none to be found. Long story short, we were on the bus to Chengdu, relieved albeit a bit sweaty, at 6:55 on the dot. Now, for the pandas.

The Giant Panda Research base started with something like 6 pandas, and now has over 80 in captivity. Mostly, we cared about the fact that for some number of a donation (we heard both 100Y and 1000Y), you could hold and take a picture with a baby panda. Well, this was not our luckiest weekend, and the baby panda that normally stars in these pictures was too sick and weak to accept our human germs, so we couldn’t even view her through the glass. No matter, as there were so many pandas to be seen, from the lazy adults that have their food scattered throughout their habitat by their caretakers to discourage sitting in the same spot all day long, to the lively “teenagers” racing each other up their jungle gyms and practically posing for pictures, to “Panda Kindergarten,” where the babies all teetered dangerously in different branches of the same tree, not moving once over the course of our three hour visit.

That night, we attended the Sichuan Opera. We had heard a great deal about it and seen the masks in every traditional store, so we knew we had to see it. While some of it was hard to follow, the performances were amazing, from comedies to traditional stories, intricate puppet shows and even shadow puppets. The best part was the performance where the actors changed to the colorful mask of a different warrior, probably 6 each, with the blink of an eye or snap of fingers in front of their face. I would still love to figure out the mechanics of their mask-changing!

What we learned in Chengdu? Just as we suspected: pandas are the best part about China.

SMU Update 4/26/11

We went to SMU’s Old Campus in Shanghai city today for a presentation by Zurich Financial Services Ltd on “Zurich Day.” The most interesting presentation was by a marine insurance underwriter out of Singapore, as he really was able to hold our attention and make the presentation relevant to us as students. I only wish I had already taken Marine Insurance so that I could’ve had a better conversation after the presentation!

We attended a buffet with our roommates and the master’s students that were also at the presentation afterward, and we were very pleasantly surprised by what was served: lasagna, lamb, chicken, steamed vegetables and SALAD! Very good meal for those of us who were missing home and Easter activities!

SMU Update 4/19/11

The other day Denis Kelleher and I went to Shanghai Wild Animal Park. It took us about twenty minutes to get there via taxi, and we arrived about twenty minutes before the gates opened. It was great to get there early because as soon as the gates opened, it was like we had the entire zoo to ourselves. The zoo consisted of two sections. The first section was the walking section, and the second section was the safari section.

The walking section was filled with a huge variety of animal species. Our first encounter was by a man holding the reins of a camel. He offered to let me ride the camel for 50 RMB, which is under 10 USD. Of course I couldn’t say no! The ride was enjoyable especially since it was something I have never done. It was a great start to a day that would only get progressively better and better. We continued our tour and got to see things like the endangered golden monkey, kangaroos, crocodiles, a rhinoceros, anteaters, ostriches, and many more. What was even more amazing is that these animals were not in cages, it was as if they were out in the open. Next we came to a section called the “Animal Kindergarten.” This was an area where the young animals were kept. We saw animals such as baby monkeys and meerkats. The most exciting however were the baby tigers, and baby brown bears. We got to see baby tigers wrestling on the ground two feet in front of us! When I thought it could not have gotten any better, a man offered us the opportunity to hold the baby brown bears. Again, of course I could not say no. Denis held the baby, and I held one that was a little bit older. It was funny because the bear acted similar to the way an infant would. It was so great playing with them that I did not want to leave. I really wanted to take one home.

From there we headed to the lion and tiger section. Along with seeing typical lions and tigers that you would see at every zoo, we also saw the White Lion, and two Ligers. The White Lion (see picture) was ferocious, and judging by his loud roar it seemed as if he was not too happy to see us. The Liger is a mix between a tiger and a lion (see picture). Its skin was similar to a lions, but it also had faded stripes of a tiger. Its face was like a tiger, but its head had the mane of a lion. What is even more amazing is that the possibility of this happening is about 2% and it is believed that there is only eight existing in the entire world! From there we were again greeted by a man standing next to an elephant. Before he even asked I handed him some money to ride it. He told me to put my hand on the elephant’s head, so I did. Instantly the elephant’s trunk wrapped around me and he lifted me over his head! For a second I thought he was going to put me in his mouth! The elephant was great, and definitely my favorite part of the day. To top it off I hand fed a giraffe right afterwards. The safari section was surprisingly a disappointment. The ride was way too quick, and the bus was severely over packed. Even after that, I can still say the zoo was my favorite experience here so far, and my close encounter with so many animals is something that not many get to experience. I recommend for any one who ever comes to China, to make a pit stop at Shanghai Wild  Animal Park.