Jenna arrived before I did, so she had a couple nights by herself. I left on a Saturday around noon and didn't arrive until about 1am due to my 8 hour layover in China. But the layover turned out to be better than expected due to running into a friend at the airport before I even left Korea. Standing in line I notice a girl who looked familiar in the line next to me waiting to check in for the flight. Turns out it was my friend Anna who was on the same flight as me. We ended up being able to sit next to each other on the plane & then spent the 8 hour layover having fun in China.
Now people keep asking me how we were able to "sneak out" of the airport since we didn't have China visas, but I have no idea why nobody ever checked us. We went through the immigration booth & they stamped our passports with the necessary documentation & we were free to roam around the airport. The next thing I know we had exchanged some money from WON into YUAN and were on the subway to the middle of Shanghai city. Considering the subway was attached to the airport, we "technically" never left the airport, haha!
We spent the day exploring what we could with the few hours we had. We made sure to leave enough travel time to make it back early for our flight. The main pictures we took were of a famous tower & the circular walkway in the middle of the city, as well as the tall buildings & a ten story mall. I bought a couple key chains & a Buddha ring to make my trip to China "official" lol.
The first bad experience of my vacation happened that morning when I discovered my ATM card would not work. My bank in Korea had told me that since my card said "Maestro" on it, that it would work in other countries. Since it was a Sunday, I had to wait until Monday morning to call them. That's when I found out that they had "made a mistake." They said that because I had opened my account at a small branch of NH and not the main branch of NH, that my card would not work overseas. PERFECT! I was sooo pissed off, but finally after calming down I fixed my problem of not having money. I had my mother transfer money from my account in Texas to Jenna's account so that I could access it. Even though I was able to have money for my trip, it was still a hassle to keep up with who's money was who's since we were taking money out of the same account & taking turns paying for different things, such as food and hotels. Needless to say I wish I could change banks, but since I all of my bills are set up for automatic debit out of my account, it would be a hassle for my co-teacher to help me change everything. Oh Korea!
Back to Sunday...I borrowed money from Jenna for the day & we went shopping on Khao San road & tried some street food. I had never had Pad Thai before, but it was amazing! Much better than Korean food for sure! Due to a slight rain shower, our shopping was cut short a bit, so we ducked into a massage place where we got a foot massage & facials. Afterwards we rested in our room to re-charge our batteries for our first night out together in Bangkok.
It turned out to be one of our best nights! We started at a small street bar that had a few tables set up on the side of the road. After a couple drinks there we moved to another place that had a set-up on the street as well. That is where we discovered the infamous "bucket" drink. Essentially it is a full bottle of alcohol (not your normal sized one, but def not a small one) mixed with a splash of whatever mixer(s) you want poured inside what looks like a sand bucket you'd use on the beach. We had many of these throughout our trip :) They are meant for sharing, and that didn't take me long to figure out after I drank an entire one by myself, lol.
I promise we didn't just drink the entire time on vacation :) I'll now move on to the next part of our adventure in another post.
XOXO,
Amanda
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