Can Anyone Say "Culture Shock?"

I know you all have been waiting in anticipation, we can tell by the overwhelming amount of comments, but no worries, we have made it to Shanghai alive. Thanks for at least looking at the pictures folks. For those of you actually reading this thing (thanks, Mom) here is what we have been up to for the last 3 intense days.

In hindsight, our last night in the states wasn't nearly sufficient for taking in the amenities of America. But, in brief, we hit the Rock n' Roll McDonald's in Chicago, moved hotels to near the airport, hiked the ghetto of Chicago with our packs after dark, both completely repacked, and managed to fit in a mere 2 hours of sleep.

WEDNESDAY: We woke up early and took the 7:35am shuttle to O'hare airport. We were definitely crossing our fingers to get tickets on standby, but we were even luckier than we thought... 2 first class seats! Luxuries included a six-course meal, concluded with an ice cream sundae, seats folding down into beds, movies on demand, gin & tonics, and the flight attendant even gave us mini bottles of Skyy for 'sterilizing' things (THANK YOU!).Three movies, two meals, fours hours of sleep, fourteen hours of flying and abundant amounts of tap water later, we arrived in Shanghai! I think we were pretty much in shock that we actually did this thing. As most of you know, we talk big game, but actually breathing in the thick smoggy air made us both realize how real this whole trip is. The one and only word to describe the first day in China: overwhelming. We definitely need to get back into the swing of being backpackers after our first class flight and six nights in the Hilton.

When we walked out of the airport and easily boarded the bus labeled "3" (also equally labeled in Chinese, of course), it almost seemed too easy. But we quickly became aware of the uniqueness of our voices. As we would talk on the crowded bus, I began hearing how foreign I must sound to the ears of the Chinese natives. Thanks to some helpful people along the way, we finally made it to the Longyang metro station, onto the correct train and eventually we emerged from underground in the middle of downtown Shanghai. As helpful as several people attempted to be, the unhelpfulness of the hostel's tiny print-out map, paired with thousands motorcyclists who fail to follow traffic signals and the sudden rain storm all made for a very challenging excursion. Through sweat and smog we finally found our hostel on Middle Jiangxi. We checked in smoothly and after swapping some stories with our roommates from California, we rested for a bit in the cool air conditioning. Before too long we decided to brave the city again. The best advice we were given: Get the front desk at the hostel to write down the Chinese characters of what you need in the city and then take the note with you and get people to read it. As we walked one block down and handed the transit office the note we asked the hostel for, it worked smoothly enough to purchase tickets on the Bullet Train to Beijing for Saturday night. To ease the bit of culture shock we were having, we happened upon a very Americanize mall and wandered in to rest for a little while. We explored some more, ran a couple errands in the city and rested once again back at our hostel.

Just after dark we decided to head out for food before it got too late, as the jet-lag was definitely kicking in. Our Lonely Planet suggested a restaurant nearby but it was either closed down or at the end of a dark alley, so we decided to find another place on our own. Eventually we found ourselves on Nanjing Rd- filled with bright lights and tons of people! After rejecting all the nearby options of American fast food chains we found a place called the Old Shanghai Restaurant. It was on the seventh floor of a building overlooking the brightest part of Nanjing Rd. and for only $7 we shared a beef stir-fry, fried rice and had bottled water. We walked home afterward and quickly fell asleep after a much-needed shower.

FRIDAY: With a new map in hand we felt confident in our abilities to navigate the city with greater ease and less frustration.

Right outside our hostel is this street-market thing with some sketchy raw fish, etc.

We also learned that pedestrians never have the right-of-way, and people stare at Americans like it's their job (in fact several have asked to take pictures with us... awkward?). We left the hotel by 7:30am ready to make the most of the day.

We walked through Nanjing Rd again and even before 8am huge groups of people were doing Thai Chi on the streets!

Our first mission was to find something to eat! Jennifer braved a flat-bread off a street vendor, Chris opted for a Starbucks cinnamon roll, and both had a 30-cent McDonald's ice cream cone (really healthy mom, I swear).While heading towards the People's Square we had a rough itinerary in our minds for the day, but of course we were thrown off track fairly quickly.

View from the People's Square

While taking pictures a Chinese man asked us to take a picture of him and his cousin. Well, one thing led to another and we took them up on the offer to join them for a Tea Culture Fair. Our new friends Hester and Alfred were happy to practice some English and have some company. Hester was visiting her cousin in Shanghai after finishing her high school exams and they made wonderful company. We wound up going to the old section of Shanghai where we sat in a little room and sampled two different teas.

The entrance to the Tea Room, but we couldn't take pictures inside because Buddha was present...?

For a while we weren't sure what we got ourselves into, but our friends translated every bit to us and we both got a wonderful education and a chance to taste authentic Chinese tea. After one Ginseng tea and one Fruit & Flowers tea we said "goodbye" to our new friends.We adventured to the traditional part of Old Shanghai and into the Yuyuan Gardens and shopping market. This ancient district offered wonderful scenery, traditional Chinese buildings, and tons of people wanting to sell us watches and purses (we look like we need those apparently). Our Chinese friends taught us how to say "no, thank you," but considering our accent, most people just laughed at us... but at least they stopped harassing us. By the way, phonetically that one is "Poo She She"... just in case you want to try your hand at that.

Our first coca-cola purchase... at least we're hoping that's what those symbols meant.

We made our first souvenir purchase, learning a thing or too about bargaining on the street (hint: start at a quarter of the offering price, at least).

An unknowing suspect of Jenn's stealthy photography in a street market

After a while we walked over to the Bund which has great views of the city across the river.

We decided to splurge on a boat ride on the Huangpu River to get even better views of the infamous skyline. After that relaxing excursion, we went back to the hostel to do a little travel business, planning the itinerary for next week. For dinner we went back out to Old Shanghai and found a restaurant called "Noodle 78" where we enjoyed our first Hot Pot and some delicious Dumplings. Once again we only spent a total of $7 for the whole dinner, and spent a while relaxing and enjoying the atmosphere (we're getting good at that one).

Hot Pot!

Then we took a stroll along the Bund at night to see the city all lit up. It was hopping with locals and tourists both... hopping kind of like a fifth grade roller skating party (thanks Chris for that amazing analogy). Jennifer racked up the photo count a bit more (possibly rounding the 400 mark)(but all incredible, obviously)... and we once again went back to the hostel to call it a night. (Chris would also like to add that the estimated total for Jenn's final picture count over the next 50 days would be 17,500) (Jennifer would like to add that Chris has only taken 36 photos).

Well now we are hanging out in the hostel using up our fair share of free internet. We already took showers after a long day of walking in the smog, but tomorrow calls for another day in the city and then off to Beijing on a nine-hour over-night direct Bullet train... we cannot wait to continue on our journey. We will update you when we can from Beijing.

If you sent our photo to CNN, just tell them to put it on reserve over the next 7 1/2 weeks... and keep checking back here for updates. Thanks in advance for the overwhelming amount of in-depth comments to this incredible first post from Asia.

Much Love,
Jenn & Chris.