Friday, June 15, was an unusual day as most of the morning, the entire afternoon, and evening were open for students to do whatever they wanted. Seventeen of the twenty students decided to use this free time to visit Disney’s Shanghai theme park. They had a great time. The remaining three students, David Murillo, Hayden Warlick, and Ekene Akpati, decided instead to explore downtown Shanghai’s Financial District and improvise their itinerary for the day.
As usual, our first activity after breakfast began at 9:00am. This activity consisted of an open lecture delivered by Professor Li. The topic of the lecture was System and Operations Management. Throughout the lecture, the majority of students took notes, asked questions, and contributed to the discussion. Once the lecture was concluded, we all headed back to our dorms. The seventeen students prepared for their day at Disneyland while the three of us remaining decided to do laundry since the machines were now all available. There was a minor complication in setting up the laundry cycle so myself (Ekene) stayed behind with Professor Li to solve the issue while Hayden and David walked to the nearby bank to exchange US dollars for Chinese yuan. The clothes were successfully washed with the aid of one of the dorm assistants. She was extremely cheerful and glad to help.
While the batch of laundry was in the dryer, we joined Professor Li on the sixth floor and received our choice of Sanda University t-shirts. The majority of our fellow students were at Disneyland so we had first priority in selecting our shirt color and size. After receiving and trying on our shirts we ate a quick lunch, provided by the dorm cafeteria. By then our laundry was done. We packed our clothes away and prepared for our subway trip to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. After mapping out where we needed to go and getting off the subway, we headed up onto the street. We walked several blocks behind apartment buildings and a construction site.
These apartments were our first exposure to lower income housing in China. Very nearby was Shanghai’s financial district. There was a sharp contrast in the quality of the buildings as we transitioned to the main street to see banks and other financial institutions. Eventually, we arrived at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Unfortunately, we could not see much of the exchange once inside. We saw trading boards, statues and the building’s architecture. But the trading floor was not open to the public. Next, we decided to go to the Shanghai Aquarium. After a 35 minute walk, we entered the aquarium and saw some exotic fish exhibits. While many of the fish were similar (as China shares the Pacific coasts with the US) there were some breeds we had never seen before. The soft-shell turtle stood out the most. The most interesting exhibit at the aquarium was the underwater tunnel. At 509 feet, it is the world’s longest underwater aquarium tunnel. The tank was filled with tiger sharks, hammerheads, stingrays, sea turtles, and countless smaller fish.
After we finished with the aquarium, we took the subway to the entrance of Shanghai’s Maglev Train. It took us a very long time to find the entrance to the Maglev because we walked the wrong way out of the subway. We did not have any phone signal and very few signs were in English. After a long time, we found the entrance and bought tickets to the train. It turned out to be well worth the wait, as the train ride was pretty interesting. Even at a max speed of 430kph, the Maglev train feels quite smooth and is surprisingly stable. It was only when another Maglev passed us, and a very loud sound broke out, that we realized how fast we were going. The speed of the train was illustrated by the difference between our train ride and the subway home. It took us 8 minutes to get to the airport from the Maglev entrance. It took 55 minutes to travel the same distance back by subway. All in all, we had a very full day and were glad to get home and rest. I think all three of us were glad we chose to spend our day traveling around the city.