Hello and welcome back to Learning My ABCs!
A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to travel to Shanghai, China and during that time I recorded what I did each day for a week. So as promised in my previous post, I now present to you:My Week in Another World (Part 1 of a Photo Diary).
The plane ride:
I really needed to pee but I had a window seat and the lady next to the aisle was asleep! These are the times I truly wish could teleport.
Day 1:
Today I woke up at 7:30 am. I was freezing! I was quite reluctant to get up, but eventually I did by thinking about the breakfast upstairs that my grandpa no doubt had worked hard to prepare. Of course, there was the food on the table and my grandpa greeted me warmly from the kitchen. Breakfast was porridge and salted eggs. I loved it.
Afterwards my mom, grandpa, and I went out to run errands and were quite successful. Later, my mom went out to meet up with some of her old friends and I hung out with my grandparents. We went to the park where my grandmother does tai-chi and I spent some time studying for the ACT.
Day 2:
Today, my mom, my grandma, and I went on a day trip to HangZhou, as is our tradition. HangZhou has a huge monetary with numerous Buddhas carved into the sides of mountains. It’s both a tourist attraction and a religious place.
Traveling to HangZhou was exhausting! We took a Train for an hour-and-a-half, then the subway, then a bus. At the very least, it was beautiful.
At these monasteries, you light up a xiang, a stick, with fire from a fire pot (as shown above) and pray in all four directions with three bows per direction. Then, you walk up the stairs to the temple, cross the entrance boundary by stepping over it with your right foot, and then perform full kowtows in front of the giant Buddha statue.
Day 3:
Today, my mom, my uncle, and I went to see the Buddha again at a different temple, one closer to our home in Shanghai. It was really peaceful. Usually the place is swarming with tourists, but today, in the middle of April, it was quiet.
Afterwards, we went out to eat dim sum. It was so good! Here we have authentic boba, chicken fingers, roasted duck, clam with vermicelli, egg tart, tofu, and shrimp dumplings. What a feast!
I would say that I spent 30% of my trip and most of my money on transportation. You could really learn a culture just by sitting on a subway and observing the way people interact and how they dress.
That is all for Part 1! Tune in next time for Part 2…and, as always, thanks for Learning My ABCs with me!
