To Shanghai

• Woke up at 6:10 and finished packing chargers and morning toiletries.
• Bing came at 6:45, and the receptionist packed 2 breakfasts for me (I found this out while I was in the car, so I gave one to Bing).
• As before, Bing was really inquisitive. I told him about my Chinese tourism experience on the river cruise (summary: the scenery is beautiful, but the service not so much). Bing thinks the tour guide made up the 'fee' I was supposed to pay yesterday.
• Seriously...he hardly has an accent. How has this guy never left China (except his one time in Tokyo)??
• When we got to the airport, he walked me in and had me fill out a feedback form ("not including yesterday"). I'm assuming all the confusion with this third-party tour service came about from the hiccup in scheduling.
• Security was fast and I made it through within about 10 mins. I made sure to take off my money-belt this time. Only mistake I made was I ran my boarding pass through the scanner, but they wanted to see it at the metal-detector.
• My gate was right in front of security (there aren't very many gates in Guilin), so I walked over there to re-situate myself after security. I was ready by 7:45 (boarding time 8:15), so I went ahead and wrote the bullets up through here.
• Got on the plane and it looked like my row was just me, but then some late people came and a Chinese woman sat by me. When it looked like boarding was done, she left to sit with her friends, but then the flight attendant said we were delaying departure because some passengers were not yet on board. Two of those guys sat by me (I'm guessing at least one was not in his assigned place...?), and as I tried to stand up and let them in they pushed me back into my chair and scooted across me. Really?
• After a bumpy flight I got my revenge, because as soon as those wheels touched down these two were READY TO GO, but I didn't want to stand and wait so I stayed seated with my backpack in my lap so they couldn't get back over me.
• The voucher for this flight said alcoholic beverages were free, but I found out that there was only beer (and it was 9am...). They did give us some food though: a roll, a muffin, peanuts, and a juice box with some strange apple/milk thing...?
• Got off the plane and realized I had left my binder on, so I turned around but the guard (who I was standing right next to) said I couldn't go unless I had my boarding pass...k. Fortunately, I was able to fish it out of my pocket and he let me go.
• There was a long hike to get to baggage claim! When I got there I looked for a money exchange place but still didn't see one, so I went out.
• I noticed that the airport had drinking water fountains! Haven't seen one of those in awhile (the water here isn't potable, but I guess they have some way to purify it en mass for these machines).
• My guide's name is Suzy. She's always lived in Shanghai, and graduated with a degree in English in 2000. She's been a tour guide ever since. She has a 12-year old daughter, so she and her husband are considering moving to Vancouver to let her go to High School. Shanghai has a population of about 7 million native people and 63 MILLION who have come here for work since it has built up so much as a financial hub for China, so the system is bursting.
• We talked about the Chinese education system: public education is paid for by the government for 9 years, and then there is an exam to see whether or not you get to go to high school. The passing rate for this is only 45%, and the best you can do without a higher education is vocational school to become a blue-collar worker. Once you make it through high school, there's another exam to see if you qualify for a specialization at a university. this funnel is much less extreme - 80% make it through - but if you're in that 20% it's back to the vocational route for you. Even if you do make it through the exams, the government isn't going to help you pay for anything (fortunately university here is only ~5000USD/yr). Suzy and her husband are worried that their daughter will be forced into something that will make her life much harder, a job like waitressing where you work long and hard days and don't make very much for it. The passing rates go down every year, because there's such an influx of people, so more people are trying to go with the private international school option if they can (costs ~100,000USD/yr. Wow)
• We also talked about the Chinese healthcare system: The government gives everyone 600 yuan per year to go towards minor illnesses like a cold, but whatever you don't use from this account rolls over to the next year. Usually a doctor's visit costs about 200 yuan. If you get really sick and have to go beyond the 600, it's up to you to pay about 1500 USD  before the government will start kicking in 50%. People past the retirement age of 55 (women)/60(men) get a special privilege to only have to pay about 500 USD before the government kicks in 80%. If you need something like an X-Ray, it can be as soon as same-day (if the hospital isn't busy), or as much as 2 days. Suzy is concerned about the healthcare in Canada, because even though it is government-paid, it can take you 2 weeks to be seen by a doctor.
• We walked to the Maglev Station and caught the train about 1 min before it left. This is now a standing type of train, so we needed to find seats. It was pretty full, but we found 2 that faced each other.
• There was a Korean girl (who lives in Japan) sitting next to Suzy, and she asked Suzy some questions about the train or suggestions for things to do in Shanghai once she heard us talking in English.
• The train goes up to 300 km/hr during the non-rush-hour times (up to 450 for a few hours each day). Watching things pass by in a blur doesn't look super different than you would expect, but when the train turns it leans to one side like an airplane. I also expected it to 'raise up' before we took off, but didn't feel s thing.
• We passed a train going in the opposite direction, but the whole thing was passed in less than the time it takes to blink!
• Once we got to the station (8 minutes after leaving the airport - a 40 min car ride away!), the girl from the train had a bunch more questions, which Suzy was kind to answer, but I could tell she was trying to leave her. She led me out of an "oversized luggage" exit and we made our escape to the car.
• We drove for about 45 mins (mostly talking about education and healthcare and housing) before we got to the hotel
• I got to my room and discovered that Snapchat and blogger work! Still no facebook or google though...
• The Internet connection here is really good! I tried to figure out what to go do, and wrote the bullets up until here while I had the time.
• Went down and got a map from the receptionist. She seemed to speak English, but when I asked for a recommendation she just pointed to a general area and said the map had plenty of information on it. Thanks.
• Also exchanged money. Here, they have a fancy machine that takes in the foreign bills and spits out yuan. it's really strict about the quality of the bills it will accept though, so I had to smooth out my bills and run them through a few times before it was willing to take them.
• Sat down in the lobby to examine the map for about 10 mins. There isn't much near my hotel other than the Jade Buddha (part of the tour tomorrow), but there were several 'points of interest' that I thought I could walk to. I set out and found out very quickly that the weather was more rainey than it had been when I got to the hotel.
• I put the water cover on my camera bag, zipped my jacket up and kept walking. I was determined to not go sit in my hotel room during my free day in Shanghai.
• The plan was to start out at the intersection of Changshou & Changde, which was the general area the receptionist circled when I said "food." Whe I got there all I saw was KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's. Great. I had passed a bing place on my way there (bing is the chinese word for a circle of baked dough, and I had read something saying I should try it while in Shanghai), but I wanted something more substantial and figured I would be coming back this way anyway.
• I turned and went down Changde to find the Jiang'an Temple, and I thought I had walked far enough but wasn't seeing it. I was getting frustrated because of the rain, so I decided maybe this itinerary I had made was going to be more work than fun (it was raining hard enough that I wouldn't have wanted my camera out anyway). I saw a small street that looked like it might have food, but it did not. So I basically just looped back around to Changde, but I stopped once to get a pork bun from "Best Bun." I was gonna swing back by the bung place and go to my hotel, but before I made it back the rain had made the sky so dark that a small mall I hadn't noticed before had it's big lights on outside. Technically, this was an outdoor mall, but there was a ceiling and that's all I wanted.
• Inside, there were a bunch of vendors, including a couple food ones. The one with the most people stuffed around it said it was a "Takoyaki Bar," and served these little fried balls (about the size of a donut hole). I accidentally looked at the pictures too long, so the lady started trying to talk to me. I ended up ordering some because I figured it would be something to try, but I'm pretty sure by the name that it was a Japanese place, and I've been trying to avoid eating at places that don't serve local cuisine. Oh well.
• These balls had stuff inside of them (tasted like some kind of mussel?), and were topped with these paper-thin slices of what I think was bacon. They weren't bad!
• I was in a much better mood after walking around and getting a little drier. There was a bubble tea place in this mall, but I decided to try another one I had passed because it claimed to be "the best," and was surrounded by locals.
• Got a little lost looking for the bubble tea place, but I found another mall to stroll through (not very many people inside).
• Left and found the bubble tea place (Coco's). They were playing Adele and their ad was in english, but their menu and staff were all chinese. I used Google translate to tell me what the menu said, and I ordered toffee milk tea. She asked if I wanted it hot our cold, and I said cold since I was planning to take it back to the hotel room (and it's bubble tea, so duh). She repeated the question like I had answered incorrectly, but this time she took the payment...and eventually gave me a drink that had no boba in it. The milk tea was fine, but nothing special.
• Made my way back to the hotel, planning to stop at the Bing place, but I couldn't find it! I circled back twice but I'm not sure where it is anymore. Guess it was a unicorn building.
• Finished the rest of the bullets and decided that I'll work on my recommendation letter for Dr. Julien (it's due by March 1). Suzy is coming for me tomorrow at 9:30!