New Surroundings: Summer in Shanghai: Roaming Around

Over the past three weeks since I have arrived I spent a lot of time roaming around the city. For the first week I traveled with other people who knew their way around and just followed them, but I got more familiar with the bus/metro system and started traveling alone when I could. Although having company is always fun, I prefer to go alone. I feel that I have a better sense of everything when I am traveling alone. Apart from having to rely on yourself, I think the best thing about traveling alone is that you become more aware of everything around you. While roaming around I was able to take in my surroundings, the interesting stores and, most importantly, I was able to pay more attention to the locals and the way they lived.

Since I do not travel a lot, the stores in Shanghai are completely new to me. They’re so many stores (different and similar) in one area. The types of “stores” that I usually see are mall-type-stores, convenience stores, restaurants, independent stores, wet market food stores, random item stands (they sell stuff on tables, bikes, and towels on the floor), and people who walk around selling items that they made. The stores that stand out the most to me are the convenience stores (Family Mart, Q, allday, etc). I see these pretty much everywhere I go. I can count at least 5 Family Marts’ around Fudan’s campus along with maybe 3 or 4 in campus. KFC is also very common in Shanghai! They are kinda similar to those in the US but with the addition of rice porridge and rice. I had my first KFC a few days ago but I bought westernized food, but the chicken sandwich had a strange sweet chile sauce in it. :/

The malls in Shanghai are huge compared to the malls I have visited in Virginia. Most malls are multiple stories. One particular mall, I went to that had seven levels, although it was connected to the metro station so it wasn’t as wide as most.

The stores on a typical street include: food related stores, convenience stores, clothes/shoes/accessories stores, cute things stores, random things stores. You can usually see at least 5 of each type of store on a street. So much competition! I usually hate to walk around the smaller streets because a lot of the stores do not have any customers. Sometimes they have employees go outside trying to get people into the store but so many people ignore them (sadly I am guilty of ignoring them). I promise I do not ignore them to be mean but because the sight of all these stores without any customers makes me sad, so I feel that avoiding eye contact is best. But what makes me the saddest is when I see empty shops in which are the owners’ only source of income. These shops are usually selling food or little trinkets.

Oh wait! What makes me even sadder is seeing the people who make the items that they sell. I remember walking around the metro station and seeing an older man selling some items that he weaved from grass. Luckily this particular gentleman had some people buy his grass items.

Now onto my favorite type of shops, the street food! The food is so cheap and tasty too, and I have yet to get food poisoning. Every night in front of the gate of the entrance of the Fudan students dormitory they’re about 6 or 7 food carts that come out. My favorite is a sandwich cart. Not sure what the food is called but it is so good!