Running the Rainbow

I love Shanghai! People say that the disadvantage to Shanghai is that it is so modernized. But, after traveling to so many other parts of China, this city was a breath of fresh air. There wasn't quite as much of a culture shock when coming to Shanghai and far more people speak English. When we got on the train, I heard so many people speaking English. It was so weird to me. When we first arrived at 11:20pm, we had to wait in a line for 45 minutes, just to get a taxi. Carly and I didn't actually get to sleep until 2am. We woke up pretty happy. Our hotel was nice and quiet and warm. We had comfortable beds. We got in a Didi and went right to People's square. It was snowing! It was the first time we had seen snow in China and it made us so happy. People's square is the center of Shanghai. All the major attractions surround People's square. We found a nice little restaurant to eat breakfast and then went to Nanjing road. Nanjing road has over 600 businesses and...

I wanted to travel to Nanjing because we could sleep on the train ride there and also sleep on the way back. We didn't need to book a hotel. The train ride was 11 hours long. This overnight train was a bit of a shock. We have been in China for about 3 months now, but this was a bit of a scary culture shock to me. Not only were we the only white people on the entire train, but we were in such close quarters with everyone around us. No one spoke English. Carly, on the other hand, thought it was the coolest thing ever and climbed right up to the top bunk. Nanjing was the capital thousands of years ago throughout several dynasties and kingdoms. It is a city in the Yangtze River Delta. When we got of the train, we saw the Xuanwu Lake. It is a royal garden lake with the Ming Great Wall. The wall was intended to protect the ancient capital from invaders. We hopped on a boat to travel around the lake. We had Chinese people asking to take pictures with us. On the other side of the l...