Shanghai: Days 1 and 2

The view from my hotel

         

Boat to the Shanghai's oldest river town

Silk Factory

Step: ?

Final product

 The first night in Shanghai I was a little disappointed because the girl that I had originally booked the flight and hotel with was told that she could not get a visa to go into China. So that meant that I was going to Shanghai ALONE!  My flight departed 12:30pm and by the time I arrived in Shanghai and was  at my hotel it was around 10pm. I then met up with some girls who I had never met before that were also attending HKU for dinner and walked around in thirty-eight degree weather for a couple hours (Not the best idea). The next morning I took a tour of Zhu Jia Jiao Water Village. When I signed up for the tour, I guess I thought I was in London because I imagined on being on a big red bus with a whole bunch tourists, but instead I was surprised to find it would just be my tour guide and I in a black Nissan Altima (I also thought it would be a bigger group because you could pay more for individual tours if you wanted to). But after getting over my commercialized expectations, I was excited that I was about to see the more rural part of Shanghai. When we arrived I asked the tour guide if I could take pictures of the chickens they were selling and she responded "sure, go ahead" but when I proceeded to take out my camera, I was yelled at by lady who was selling them because I wasn't going to buy anything from her. So I apologized for not wanting to buy any live chickens, and then continued along on my way. After a few minutes of walking I was surrounded by like ten ladies trying to sell me little fishes because there is apparently a Buddhist ritual of throwing these fishes off a 400 year old bridge and into the river. I however declined and got on the boat to go to the other side of the river and once I got off I  tried some odd dishes like stinky tofu, which smells horrible but doesn't taste that bad. Once we finished the driver in the Altima was ready to take us to a famous silk factory. Inside, a different lady showed me a step by step process of how silk was made and there was even people reenacting the steps for me. What surprised me most about the silk making process was that every part of larvae cocoon was used and absolutely no part of it went to waste. Once she was done explaining how silk was made I was guided into a store where absolutely everything was made of silk and even though  I had never thought of buying anything made of silk I ended buying myself a twenty dollar scarf. They did try to put a lot of pressure on me to buy a something for my Mom, so in order to get out of it, I told them "she doesn't like silk" then "she already has too much of it" and then "I'll give her my scarf when I go back home"(They probably thought I was the worst daughter ever, sorry mom).