People's Square and The Bund

People's square is located at the center of Shanghai. It is on the Puxi side of the Huangpu river and is on top of one of, if not the, busiest metro stops in China. 400,000 people use this metro stop every day. Using the metro in general, but especially this station, gives you an idea of how populous this city is.

The square itself was converted into a square from a horse racing track. When China became a communist country, gambling became illegal and the need for a horse racing track no longer existed. It too is often quite busy. It is a popular tourist spot, and from what I have read it is a common place to get picked up for a tea scam.

Shanghai Metro

My new apartment isn't very close to the city centre. In fact, it is 17 KMs away from People's Square.


This isn't a huge deal because Shanghai's transit system is awesome. I am thinking specifically of the metro system as I have never used a public bus.

Finding an Apartment

When someone new moves to Shanghai, so the debate begins on where to live. Should they live in the Pudong area of the city or should they live in the Puxi area?

Puxi is the more happening area, where the downtown is, and where a lot of the restaurants and night clubs are. Pudong is known more for having actual houses, with plenty of parks and more of a family friendly area.

This was also my first lesson in Chinese. Dong means east and xi (she) means west. Pu is the name of the big river that dissects the city. So Puxi is west of the river while Pudong is east of it.

Hello From China!

I have been absolutely awful at keeping this blog up to date.

I have done a lot of traveling since I last updated this blog on my adventures...and I am not planning on slowing down the travel anytime soon. Since my last travel post, I have been to Dubai, Vietnam, Bali, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I even spent a year dormant in Canada.

That means I have a lot of work to do in order to update this blog.

As a second grade teacher I am constantly encouraging my students to keep practicing in order to achieve better results and improve. As an aspiring writer, it is time to take my own advice.

I'm trying to decide what exactly this means. I think I should be writing daily in order to keep my writing skills sharp. I can keep myself accountable for that by promising and following through with a weekly article for this blog.