Leave the pizza, take the cannoli...

Jenn and I have decided to try to head up to Beijing to see the capital and watch them bring in their Chinese New Year on the 25th. However, traveling during this time in China is about the worst time all year. Why? Keep in mind that there are millions and millions of Chinese migrant workers who are jamming train stations to buy tickets home for the Lunar New Year break (Chinese New Year), and millions of others are relying on ticket scalpers to get away for the year's most important holiday. Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the biggest of two Golden Week holidays, and these give migrant workers their only chance of the year of returning to their home provinces with gifts for the family - this is the biggest movement of humanity in the world. Last year, this mass movement was disrupted, if not ruined, by the worst winter weather in the south in decades.

Believe it or not we have found it strangely relaxing to simply wade into the massive seas of people waiting for the train and instead of fighting, just shuffle along with our luggage like everybody else - no yelling, no shoving, no screaming, no losing of tempers, no hurt feelings...just waves of people, as far as the eye can see, trying to get somewhere just like everybody else. Competitiveness and jockeying for position and a win/lose attitude have no place here and the Chinese will be embarrassed for you because you don't know how to behave yourself.

So we are ready for the crowds, we have our hopes on seeing and exploring Beijing, and after grabbing a taxi for a quick morning trip to the Shanghai train station - we were not totally surprised to find all of the ticket counters closed shut. Apparently, the rail system is so maxxed out that they are not selling anymore tickets - for how long, nobody knows. We didn't give up though, close to the station was another building that had about a dozen ATM machines but instead of money they let us purchase train tickets electronically - and they had English as a language! We stumbled through the menus, navigated the money exchange, and got the three we need now and gave each other a high fives like kids!

A bit giddy from getting closer to our Beijing trip, we played some more frogger and made it across a huge intersection and headed over to one of the most popular restaurants here in Shanghai - Pizza Hut! From the start, we've considered going to these western places - KFC, McDonalds, Burger King - cheating...we want to make ourselves learn about the food, however strange and somewhat intimidating in it's visceral rawness and some of it is simply too gross to consider smelling much less eating, but we want to eat like the Chinese (and hey, they LOVE these places...) So, we slumped in, had a seat, and as we looked over the nine page menu(!) we snickered as we listened to the theme from the Godfather play overhead. "Leave the pizza, take the cannoli," I mumbled, and Jenn says 'Don't make me go to the mattress on this one, we're staying!"

And it was good - really good. We had a stuffed crust Supreme and I had a pot of fruit tea, which is like Sangria except it's with tea and they put it on a little stand with a tea candle underneath to keep it warm. Yum! After the pizza, we buttoned up (it was a balmy 43 yesterday) and walked for over an hour and a half to another temple we read about called the Jade Buddha Temple.

Jade Buddah Temple

Click for more pics of the temple Shanghai_Jade Buddha Temple

In 1882, an old temple was built to keep two jade Buddha statues which had been brought from Burma by a monk named Huigen. The temple was destroyed during the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty but the jade Buddha statues were saved and a new temple was built on the present site in 1928. It was named the Jade Buddha Temple. Jenn and I are feeling so comfortable in these temples now that we enjoy visiting the Four Kings, the 18 Buddhas who have attained enlightenment, and all of the other alters the temple has for paying respects. This one had beautiful Jade Buddhas and some of the most beautiful gift shops I've seen yet in the country. We aren't buying anything yet because we know we will be here for a year but we will definitely be coming back to Jade Temple. After walking around, I showed Jenn how to say a Buddhist prayer and for the first time we both purchased incense and said our own prayers and payed our respects, then left the incense to burn in the traditional burner. We both have much to be thankful for...

Take a look at this serene and peaceful temple that is still active today...