China: Dec. 28-Jan.2

On the night of Dec. 27, we took an overnight train from Xian to Shanghai. On December 28, we went to the French Concession and Nanjing Road, which are shopping areas in Shanghai.

Nanjing Road

On December 29, I went to the Museum of Modern Art. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The museum was really well done. In Japan, the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art is way better than the one in Tokyo. The one in Tokyo actually isn't modern art, but more like 1900s art. Below was my favorite display. It had all these intricate parts that moved and then lights made shadows.

After going to the museum, I was going to go the history museum, but I made a huge mistake. A girl asked me to take her picture. She said she was on vacation from Northern China. Her and her friend seemed really nice. She said that she wanted to practice English, so I agreed to help her practice for awhile. They said they were going to watch a tea ceremony, so I went with them. It was such a bad mistake. I had to pay a lot of money for tea.

View of Shanghai

Oriental Pearl Tower

Next, I went to the aquarium. They had this cool conveyor belt walkway surrounded by tanks.

On Dec. 30, we went to Yu Gardens. This area is very cool. If you go, you should definitely pay to get into the gardens because they are beautiful. On the night of Dec. 30, we took an overnight train from Shanghai back to Beijing. On Dec. 31, I went to the Natural History Museum. It was very interesting, and there was almost no one there.

On the night of Dec. 31, we ate Peking duck. Actually, most of the food we had on the trip was bad, but I think it was because we didn't know where to go. After eating the hot pot on one the first nights, my friend refused to eat Chinese food after that. The only other Chinese food we ate was on the two tours, and it was really poor quality. We ended up eating Pizza Hut 4 times and McDonalds 3 times. We decided to not do anything for New Years because we were so tired. Actually, my friend fell asleep at 9 p.m. On Jan. 1, we slept in really late because we were so exhausted. After that, we went to Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. You could see his body through a crystal coffin. You weren't allowed to take bags in, so we took turns waiting for the other person. It was so cold outside. Finally, on Jan. 2, we went to the airport at 5:45 a.m. I was really happy to return to Japan.