Winter Break

Oh dear... so much to say! I'll start with the beginning of Winter Break. My dad arrived in Beijing on the 18th of December. On the 19th was the annual SYA Christmas dinner to kick off winter break. It was very enjoyable, but unfortunately, all the I have no pictures because they are all on my dad's camera. The first Monday of break, my dad and I flew down to Shanghai for a little vacation. Shanghai is much larger than Beijing, and is modernizing extremely rapidly. From the airport to our hotel near the Bund, 95% of the cab ride was on a raised highway that twisted through a mess of skyscrapers and old apartment buildings. I thought Beijing was sprawling, but it is nothing compared to Shanghai. Our hotel room overlooked the Yu Gardens, Huangpu river, and Pudong district (across the Huangpu from our hotel). At night, Shanghai was a blaze of neon lights. One entire side of a citibank skyscraper lit up into an enormous advertisement. The Bund (the Lakeshore Drive of Shanghai) was under huge construction, presumably in preparation for the 2010 World Expo, which will be held in Shanghai. We went up into the Pearl tower, which is roughly the height of the Empire State Building and looks kind of like a needle sticking out of the ground with glass circular rooms for people to look out of. Its appearance is hard to describe, so I'll just include a picture. I found Shanghai slightly dirty than Beijing in places, but it definitely has a more energetic feeling to it. I guess I would also describe as a little bit more Western. A couple downsides about Shanghai were that most taxi drivers were rude, and the traffic was pretty atrocious. Other than that, though, I found Shanghai to be very enjoyable and am glad I was able to visit a new place for Christmas. I will post about my adventures with my mom in a couple of days. 

The pictures are of my dad and I at dinner with my host mom and sister, my dad eating with chopsticks (which is a rare occurrence since he can't use them to save his life), the daytime view from our hotel room (overlooking part of "Old Shanghai", the Huangpu river, and the new Pudong district) a view of the Pearl tower from the ground, and the glowing Pudong District at night (view from across the river). And for some reason they loaded in the opposite order of how I stated them, so looking at them from bottom to top would be a wise idea:)