This summer, 10 students and two faculty members are traveling to China to enhance their Chinese language skills while experiencing the country’s vast and diverse cultural landscape. Please enjoy this next blog post below from Brandon ’26 where he shares about his whirlwind day in Shanghai filled with unforgettable food, spontaneous mall adventures, touristy photo ops, and a thrilling 4D movie night with his homestay family.
I think my day started sometime in the morning, in a dark, humid room; wet and humid with only one sock on my foot. I had been sweating profusely, and then I found it: multiple mosquito bites… in my armpit. I realized I had fallen asleep during our conversation with Orlando. We had been talking about our day, video games, and his previous relationship issues. I tried to check the time, but my phone was dead, of course. Then, the smell of breakfast from my host family was calling to me, and I wasn’t going to miss that.
They had ordered an assortment of dishes that could have been taken directly from the food lover’s wildest dreams! Brown tofu soup, cheesy spicy bread, and a few other delicious things that I completely forgot the name of. It was a real game of “guess what you’re eating”, and honestly, I lost, but in the best way. Everything tasted so good and was so comforting. If breakfast was this good, I could only imagine what the rest of the day held for me.
After I devoured my breakfast, Emmanuel called. He wanted to see if Isaac and I wanted to go to Global Harbor, a mall that was near East China Normal University. I did not have any huge plans, so I said, “Bet.” I told Isaac to meet me outside the building at 11:00 a.m. We took the 67 公共汽车 (public bus) to 金沙江路中山北路 (the 14th stop) and then walked about 10 minutes to the mall to arrive around noon.
Zariah, Emmanuel, and Cam were already at McDonald’s by the time we got there. Yes, we traveled halfway across the globe to eat at McDonald’s, but sometimes you crave a Bacon Angus Hamburger. I treated myself to that, a Strawberry McFlurry, plus some other stuff for my friends, all for the equivalent of $12 USD. Seemed like a steal.
We had plenty of time to explore and wander around the mall, which was great, but the good stuff was also coming from the French Concession. It was a mad rush to the bus because we were all laughing and so excited to see what we were going to find later, and bonding and laughing about our weird and wonderful musical tastes. You don’t want to know what we were signing to, but it made it feel like we were having a concert in the bus.
We stepped off the bus, right at the French Concession, a district filled with cafes, restaurants, and hip live music venues. We met our guide, who also had a passion for architecture, and we began to see some beautiful buildings, and we saw Kaoru Otauki’s mansion, which was also beautiful. Ava then decided to buy Oscar, Ella and me some canned pastries from a nearby shop. I won’t lie, I was excited. But after tasting the pastries, let’s say we all regretted our decision to get them almost immediately later. Lesson learned: If a pastry is canned and you can’t read the label, just don’t.
As we were walking through the area Emmanuel pointed out some areas which he particularly liked to photograph which he refers to as “Flick Spots.” You know the type of places I’m talking about, perfect in many
ways. Good light, historic buildings and the ability to convey a certain vibe for Instagram. So naturally we all took a whole bunch of photos while trying not to look too touristy about it.
After some time we found ourselves at Nanjing Road, the famous shopping road in Shanghai. Ella asked if I wanted to go walk around with her, Ava, and Oscar, but to be honest, I just wanted to see where the wind would take me. The wind took me into the Adidas store. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but it was fun to play dress-up with clothes that I would never be able to afford. It felt like a mini-fashion show, just without the live studio audience, other than Emmanuel of course. Just me and some ridiculously expensive sweatpants.
Eventually Isaac, Emmanuel, and Cam and I wandered around the shopping centre and ended up at a café where we sat down to relax and do some “people watching.” We spent a bit of time thinking about the ridiculousness of our day and talking about life.
Though, the day didn’t stop there! I rushed back to my homestay to inhale some 炒米饭 (fried rice), 辣椒 (spicy chili), and 包子 (steamed buns) for dinner. Orlando and I were planning on having a good time watching Mission: Impossible 8 at a nearby cinema. Oh man, that movie was crazy. Tom Cruise and everyone else did a good job, but the real attraction was the 4D movie experience. Ms. Amy (my homestay mom) bought us seats that moved with the film. They even had fans blowing air for the airplane scenes; it was just like we were in the film… only, without the explosions.
By the time I got home, I was absolutely whacked. I went to bed in the same position as when I woke up, except without a mosquito bite or two.
