chinese new years shanghai

Lets see where did I leave off....  After leaving the national park I made my way up to Yichang to see the three gorges dam.  The day I went to the dam it was really smoggy so it was hard to really see the whole dam but from what I could see it is massive.  I took a chinese tour to the dam (couldn't find an english one) so I can't impart any fun facts about the dam that you couldn't find yourself on the internet so here's a smoggy picture and a picture of the model of the dam.  Exciting I know!

thats a person in the bottom corner and the fuzzy dam in the background

Next I headed for Huang Shan which is a mountain just to the west of Shanghai.  I had to take an overnight bus  to the town near the mountain and ended up meeting a guy from korea on the same bus who I've traveled with for the past week to the mountain then on to shanghai.  The mountains were beautiful and again thank goodness for some guard rails because they like to walk you to places that over hang cliffs then carve stairs out of the rock and walk you down the cliffs.  we ended up hiking up the same day we arrived on the bus then stayed on the mountain for a night before hiking down.  it was really cold the second morning and foggy so for the first hour of the hike down all we could see was fog.  Thank goodness it cleared up and we could see the scenery because it was pretty amazing.  

Once we hiked down we caught a bus to shanghai and got in pretty late that night maybe 1 in the morning but the hostel was still open so we had no trouble getting a room.  Shanghai has been a pretty fun city so far of what I've seen and there are more europeans here then I've seen since I've been in china so I find myself picking them out in crowds and staring.  Pretty soon I may end up getting my picture taken with random european tourist just like people have been doing to me since I've been traveling.  I am already going to be in a lot of random photo albums here in china with various people who have stopped me on the street or in bus stations or anywhere really to get their picture with me.  Anyway yesterday I moved out of the hostel and over to stay with friends in Shanghai and its a really nice change of pace.  Im clean, my clothes are getting clean and I didn't realize until now that I haven't truly relaxed since starting traveling.  Learning the basics of surviving china can be a little stressful so its nice to finally take a breather.  

East Nanjing road Shanghai

Pudong district shanghai