May 08

Saturday was mainly a travel day. Many of us had flights out of Shanghai around 10 PM so we had a bus bring us to the airport. The schedule turned out to be a bit tight – I only got to the gate about 15 minutes before boarding began. That’s a bit tighter than I can handle, but everything turned out fine. I had a 3 hour layover in Hong Kong and then arrived in Hanoi around 4 PM (I’m now just 12 hours ahead of central time). Marianne and Tyler were waiting for me at the airport. Much smaller than I thought so I had no problems finding them. We then took a taxi back to their place. After sitting outside for a bit, we went to the tailor where she’s having the bridesmaid dresses made. We did my measurements so that the measurements are right and I can get it while I’m here. I think if I had an affordable tailor, I’d be getting clothes made all the time! Anyways, then we went and had coffee and dinner. It was a gorgeous night so we sat out, relaxed, chatted, etc.

Hanoi is obviously very different from the other cities I’ve visited. Hard to put my finger on it yet, but just a different vibe really. No big skyscrapers like Shanghai. Tons and tons of motorbikes though – unbelievable and overwhelming actually. When crossing the street you just kind of throw yourself out there and slowly make your way as motorbikes go around on either side of you. I think I’m really going to enjoy it here. A nice wrap up to a good trip!

Last Shanghai Pictures

Collection of all pictures so far

Friday is my last full day in China as tomorrow morning I depart for Hanoi. I’m really excited to see Marianne and Tyler! We had a ton to get done today, but the morning started off with a course wrap up at 8:30. After being out until 3:30 AM, the class found it slightly difficult to make it up that early. When I got there a few minutes after 8:30, there were only 3 people there. After the wrap up, we ventured to the underground market. It was interesting and we all found way too much stuff. I got some purses, wallets, a watch, and some sunglasses. Then we headed to the soft spinning market where we all had custom made clothing waiting for us. My jacket turned out pretty good so excited for that in the fall. Then we went to do some shopping for jade, but I found it a bit too expensive. Then just dinner, drinks and packing. Now I’m on to the next stage of my trip – hopefully the best part! Can’t wait to see Marianne and Tyler and get a taste of another country. Hope to post some more soon! We plan for much relaxation and a trip to Sapa by overnight train for 4 days. More soon!

Thursday was the day of the presentation to Polaroid. We got up early to finish our slides, had lunch, and then presented. All of the presentations went really well – ours included. We were all thrilled to be done. Afterwards we had a farewell dinner hosted by Polaroid. We had good food and lots of beer (some of it was warm again). We’re generally learning that they do stock some cold beer but with 25 of us plus the CK students, we get through it pretty quickly and then it’s on to the warm stuff.

Next we went on to karaoke at Party World. This time wasn’t quite as wild as we were only drinking beer – last time we had Chinese liquor as well. Still fun, but luckily this time I got out of there around 12 AM instead of 2.

On Wednesday, we needed to wrap up our project. Lindsay and I got up early to finish our slides. We had them done by 11:15 and then went out to do the sight seeing and shopping we had planned to do Sunday but ended up spending the time doing surveys. Our other group members had already left – apparently comfortable with how far they were on their part of the presentation.

We found some excellent souvenir type stuff, ate at Pizza Hut (KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut are everywhere) and then went over to Pudong to go to the observation deck at Jingmao Tower. We took the subway over, got outside, looked up and realized we couldn’t even see the top of the building – it was in a thick layer of clouds. It had been somewhat rainy all day, but we hadn’t considered how low the clouds might be. Since that was a bust, we got back in the subway, went back to the hotel only to find out that our group was no where near completing the presentation. So we all scrambled but are still not done. Thursday morning we’ll start at 8 AM to try to wrap things up for our 1 PM presentation to Polaroid. Wish us luck.