Shanghai

Yesterday, Matt and I went to Shanghai for the day with some of the other teachers here. I have to say... we weren't all that impressed. It was cool to go to Shanghai and see its famous skyline, and they had some great markets with much cheaper prices than Hangzhou; but overall, I think the city itself is way over-rated. There were so many people and so much smog. And we couldn't even walk 10 feet without someone walking up to us trying to sell knock-off watches or purses or suitcases. To say the least, I got very good at using the Chinese phrase for "I don't want that." Everything there was geared towards tourists, which isn't necessarily bad, I guess, but at the end of a tiring day of touring, we were very happy to get back into our home city of Hangzhou.