Mulan

Greetings, blog readers! Rachel here, finally posting one week after returning from an amazing six days in China. In keeping with Ben’s style, I’ve chosen one word to define my post: Mulan. Mulan is a story about expectations, reality, and surprises. As I’ve thought about our week in China, the thing I loved most about it was that it while it was everything you might imagine, it was also full of big city surprises. You visit one country, but get two China’s. Despite Ben telling us how modern Shanghai really is, I still had very traditional expectations of China. I expected I’d be weary of every meal, but instead we ate delicious dumplings, duck, and pepperoni pizza and even visited some microbreweries. I thought I’d be shopping for tea and lipstick cases, which I certainly did, but we also perused Louis Vuitton and saw more Prada and Gucci stores than I’ve ever seen in one city. (Ben says that trying to stop me from shopping is like trying to stop a freight train.) We explored beautiful temples and gardens, and of course the Great Wall, but also took in the skyline and view at The Bund and had cocktails at the Waldorf. You could say the same about New York, I suppose; there’s always new and old anywhere, but in Shanghai, there’s such a stark contrast between the two. Some of my favorite photos are from the Jing’an Temple where you see the modern buildings in the background.

Or, you could just say that sometimes you see the China you saw in the Disney animated version of Mulan, and sometimes you see the China that looks like a scene from Sex & The City.

Either way, I’ve decided to illustrate this point by continuing this post as a vlog. (Video + Blog = Vlog. I can’t help it, I’m a tech teacher.) Enjoy!